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Nauen Transmitter Station (German: ''Grossfunkstelle Nauen'' or ''Sender Nauen'') in
Nauen Nauen is a small town in the Havelland (district), Havelland district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is chiefly known for Nauen Transmitter Station, the world's oldest preserved radio transmitting installation. Geography Nauen is situated within t ...
,
Havelland Geographically, the Havelland () is the region around which the River Havel flows in a U-shape between Oranienburg to the northeast and Rhinow to the northwest. The northern boundary of the Havelland is formed by the River Rhin and the Rhin Cana ...
district,
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
, Germany, is the oldest continuously operating radio transmitting installation in the world. Germany's first high power radio transmitter, it was founded on 1 April 1906 by
Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the ''AEG (German company), Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ("General electricity company"). Prior to ...
corporation and operated as a
longwave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...
radiotelegraphy Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies f ...
station through
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, and during
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
became Germany's main link with the outside world when its
submarine communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and car ...
s were cut. Upgraded with
shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...
transmitters in the 1920s it was Germany's most advanced long range radio station, continually upgraded with the latest equipment and serving as an experimental station for Telefunken to test new technology. At the end of World War II, invading Russian troops dismantled and removed the transmitting equipment. During the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
it served as the GDR's (East Germany's) international
shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...
station Radio Berlin International (RBI), and was the East Bloc's second most powerful radio station, disseminating Communist propaganda to other countries. Since German Reunification in 1991 it has been operated by
Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...
, Germany's state telecommunication service. The original 1920 transmitter building designed by architect Herman Muthesius is still used; it is one of the many remaining buildings designed by that architect that is a protected cultural heritage site.


History

During the early years of the 20th century after Marconi's 1901 transatlantic radio demonstration, industrial nations began building networks of powerful
longwave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...
transoceanic
radiotelegraphy Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies f ...
stations to communicate with other countries and keep in touch with their overseas colonies. These transmitted
telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...
traffic with
Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...
at high speed using
paper tape Five- and eight-hole wide punched paper tape Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data st ...
machines. During
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
long-distance radio communication became a strategic technology; not only was it necessary to keep in timely contact with distant armies and naval fleets, but a nation without it could be isolated by an enemy cutting its
submarine telegraph cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and car ...
s, as happened to Germany during both world wars. The
Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the ''AEG (German company), Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ("General electricity company"). Prior to ...
company, founded in 1903 by German radio pioneers Adolf Slaby,
Georg von Arco Georg Wilhelm Alexander Hans Graf von Arco (30 August 1869 in Gorzyce, Silesian Voivodeship, Großgorschütz – 5 May 1940 in Berlin) was a German physicist, radio pioneer, and one of the joint founders of the "''Society for Wireless Telegr ...
, and
Karl Ferdinand Braun Karl Ferdinand Braun (; ; 6 June 1850 – 20 April 1918) was a German physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor. Braun contributed significantly to the development of radio with his 2 circuit system, which made long range radio transmiss ...
, was (with its rival, Britain's
Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming on ...
) one of the two giant wireless firms of the age. Built by Telefunken under the direction of engineer R. Hirsch on a 40-hectare property north of Nauen, leased from Fideikommissar Fritz Stotze, the Nauen station was Germany's first high power radio transmitter. Trial service was initiated on 9 August 1906, and operational service began on 16 August 1906 using a 25 kW
spark gap transmitter A spark-gap transmitter is an obsolete type of radio transmitter which generates radio waves by means of an electric spark."Radio Transmitters, Early" in Spark-gap transmitters were the first type of radio transmitter, and were the main type use ...
designed by von Arco, which fed an
umbrella antenna An umbrella antenna is a capacitively top-loaded wire monopole antenna, consisting in most cases of a mast fed at the ground end, to which a number of radial wires are connected at the top, sloping downwards. One side of the feedline supplying po ...
supported by a steel lattice mast 100 metres high, insulated from earth. Since the station had no commercial power, a 35 HP
steam tractor A steam tractor is a tractor powered by a steam engine which is used for pulling. In North America, the term ''steam tractor'' usually refers to a type of agriculture, agricultural tractor powered by a steam engine, used extensively in the l ...
was installed in the transmitter building, a light half timbered house, which powered a 50 Hz alternator producing 25 kilowatts (kW) output power. The transmitter worked at frequencies of 75 – 100 kHz with a radiated power of around 10 kW, and the station could be received at a range of about . The station was financed by Germany's Post Office, which wanted to develop it as a strategic link with Germany's overseas colonies, as well as handling commercial telegram traffic to the Americas. In 1909 a post office official,
Hans Bredow Hans Bredow (26 November 1879 – 9 January 1959) was a German radio broadcasting pioneer and the first chairman of Weimar Germany's Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft, National broadcasting service. He is regarded as the "father of German broadcasting ...
, became station director, who set about to achieve these goals by making Nauen a 'superpower' station. In 1911 the station changed from an experimental to a commercial station, with
call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...
POZ. The steam power plant was increased to 100 kW and the transmitter was replaced with a new more efficient 35 kW quenched-spark transmitter which increased the range to about . In the same year the antenna tower was increased to 200 metres in height; however, this tower was destroyed by a storm on 31 March 1912. A temporary replacement antenna was suspended between two 120 metres high masts. In 1913 the station was upgraded to communicate with Germany's African colony
Togoland Togoland, officially the Togoland Protectorate (; ), was a protectorate of the German Empire in West Africa from 1884 to 1914, encompassing what is now the nation of Togo and most of what is now the Volta Region of Ghana, approximately 90,400&nb ...
. The transmitter was replaced with a 100 kW quenched-spark transmitter, the most powerful transmitter in the world at the time. The omnidirectional umbrella antenna was replaced by a long directional flattop antenna consisting of 20 parallel horizontal wires supported by five towers, pointed at southwest Africa. These improvements gave the station a range of , allowing communication with all of Europe, North America, the coast of South America, and at night with
Togoland Togoland, officially the Togoland Protectorate (; ), was a protectorate of the German Empire in West Africa from 1884 to 1914, encompassing what is now the nation of Togo and most of what is now the Volta Region of Ghana, approximately 90,400&nb ...
. In addition to the spark transmitter, in 1913 a 100 kW Joly-Arco alternator transmitter was installed. This was an early
continuous wave A continuous wave or continuous waveform (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, typically a sine wave, that for mathematical analysis is considered to be of infinite duration. It may refer to e.g. a laser or particl ...
radio transmitter technology invented by
Georg von Arco Georg Wilhelm Alexander Hans Graf von Arco (30 August 1869 in Gorzyce, Silesian Voivodeship, Großgorschütz – 5 May 1940 in Berlin) was a German physicist, radio pioneer, and one of the joint founders of the "''Society for Wireless Telegr ...
similar to the
Alexanderson alternator An Alexanderson alternator is a rotating machine, developed by Ernst Alexanderson beginning in 1904, for the generation of high-frequency alternating current for use as a radio transmitter. It was one of the first devices capable of generating th ...
. It generated radio frequency current at 8 kHz using a rotating generator turned by an
electric motor An electric motor is a machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a electromagnetic coil, wire winding to gene ...
, which was increased in frequency to 32 kHz with two cascaded saturated core magnetic frequency doubler transformers before being applied to the antenna.von Arco, Georg; Dornig, W. ''High-frequency equipment at Nauen wireless station'', Physikalische Zeitschrift, vol. 40, p. 665-667, 18 December 1919, abstracted in This transmitter was capable of daylight transatlantic communication with its sister station in Sayville, Long Island, New York, while other transatlantic radio stations could only achieve transatlantic contact at night. Also an experimental 6 kW
radiotelephony A radiotelephone (or radiophone), abbreviated RT, is a radio communication system for conducting a conversation; radiotelephony means telephony by radio. It is in contrast to ''radiotelegraphy'', which is radio transmission of telegrams (messag ...
transmitter was built, one of the earliest AM transmitters, which allowed voice communication with
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, distant.


First World War and the interwar period

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10978, Nauen, Grossfunkstation.jpg, Alternator radio transmitters. The two in center were the 100 kW units from 1913. The two on the sides were the 400 kW units installed 1916. At rear are the frequency doubler transformers and tank circuits File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10518, Nauen, Umspul-Raum der Grossfunkstation.jpg, Control board for alternators File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10517, Nauen, Umspul-Raum der Grossfunkstation.jpg, Output hall with antenna
loading coil A loading coil or load coil is an inductor that is inserted into an electronic circuit to increase its inductance. The term originated in the 19th century for inductors used to prevent signal distortion in long-distance telegraph transmission c ...
s File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10977, Nauen, Grossfunkstation Nauen.jpg, Base of mast
After the beginning of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
in 1914, the station became very important because the transatlantic cables leading to Germany were cut by the British Navy. During the war, the station was run by the German Admiralty, which used it for military communication with its fleet as well as commercial radiotelegraphy traffic. The British Radio Intelligence Service devoted much effort into intercepting and decoding encrypted military communications from the station during the war. In 1916, at the urging of Bredow, major additional development of the station took place. Two huge 400 kW Joly-Arco alternator transmitters were installed, which could work in parallel giving an output power of 800 kW; making the station by far the most powerful radio transmitter in the world. These were some of the largest alternator transmitters ever built, and operated at the limit of this technology. The alternator had a 1.65 meter diameter rotor weighing 7 tons, rotating at 1500 rpm. The rotor's 240 teeth ( magnetic poles) generated 1200 amps
alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time, in contrast to direct current (DC), which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in w ...
at 450 volts and a frequency of 6 kHz. This was doubled twice by two cascaded frequency doubler transformers to give 24 kHz, which was applied to the antenna. The large doubler transformers, although 90% efficient, required a powerful forced-oil cooling system to remove the 40 kW waste heat. A system of switchable doubler and tripler transformers allowed the transmitter to operate on a range of frequencies: 12 kHz, 18 kHz, 24 kHz, 36 kHz, or 48 kHz. The antenna system was enormously increased in size. In 1920 the main flattop antenna, carried on two and four masts, was long. These transmitters gave the station a range of , which was increased to by the end of the war, essentially covering most of the world. At a right angle to the large antenna was a smaller antenna, carried by three masts, which was used by the 100 kW transmitter, so the station could transmit on two frequencies at the same time. During the war the Nauen station was Germany's main communication link with the outside world. Germany's Transocean news service broadcast overseas news summaries in English twice daily from Nauen, which could be received worldwide, to circumvent the censorship of Britain's cable network, to get their version of the news to the Americas and the Far East. In 1918 in World War 1 US president
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...
transmitted a request for surrender to Nauen from the alternator station at
New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Hermann Muthesius Adam Gottlieb Hermann Muthesius (20 April 1861 – 29 October 1927), known as Hermann Muthesius, was a German architect, author and diplomat, perhaps best known for promoting many of the ideas of the English Arts and Crafts movement within German ...
was erected in 1920, an
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
style cathedral-like structure to give space for more high power transmitting equipment. The modernized station was inaugurated on September 29, 1920 by German president
Friedrich Ebert Friedrich Ebert (; 4 February 187128 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the first President of Germany (1919–1945), president of Germany from 1919 until ...
. In the 1920s long distance radio communication shifted from the
longwave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...
to the
shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...
bands with the discovery of the
skywave In radio communication, skywave or skip refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not limited by the curvatur ...
(skip) propagation mechanism. The last
longwave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...
transmitter was installed at Nauen in 1923 and
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It ...
shortwave transmitters were installed after 1924. On 1 January 1932 the German
Reichspost ''Reichspost'' (; "Imperial Mail") was the name of the postal service of Germany from 1866 to 1945. ''Deutsche Reichspost'' Upon the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the break-up of the German Confederation in the Peace of P ...
took over the station. It was considerably expanded and by 1939 was one of the biggest and most powerful communication complexes in the world. Although vacuum tube transmitters had long been the state of the art in the 1930s, the high power alternator transmitters were again modernized in 1937 for use in WW2 to communicate with Germany's
U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...
fleet.


Second World War and the post-war period

In World War II, the longwave transmitters were used by the military to transmit instructions to submerged submarines. Unlike higher frequency radio waves, the
very low frequency Very low frequency or VLF is the ITU designation for radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 3–30  kHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 100 to 10 km, respectively. The band is also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave ...
(VLF) waves generated by the alternator transmitters could penetrate seawater and reach submerged submarines without the need for them to surface and become vulnerable to detection. The station survived World War II without damage, but after May 1945 was disassembled by Soviet occupation forces. All technical mechanisms were dismantled and the masts of the station were blown up. Whether and where the dismantled transmitters were used in the Soviet Union is unknown. The Muthesius building was also planned to be blown up, but this was prevented. The building was used for potato storage up until 1955 when the
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
(GDR, East Germany), in whose borders the station ended the war, began to use it as a radio station again. In 1959 it became the GDR's international shortwave broadcasting station, Radio DDR, which broadcast under the name Radio Berlin International (RBI). Between 1959 and 1989 21 transmitters with power up to 100 kW and 45 antenna systems were installed for worldwide radio communication. Between 1971 and 1981 three 500 kW superpower shortwave
transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...
s were installed, feeding 23 high gain curtain antennas positioned to broadcast to politically important countries. As the
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...
's second most powerful radio station after Moscow, it became important as a dissemination channel of
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
propaganda to both Western and other East Bloc countries. In 1964 two German companies built one of the first prototype rotating shortwave broadcast antennas nearby at the Dechtower dyke, which was used until the end of the Cold War. It has been preserved as a historical structure. This consisted of a 70 metre tower supporting two reflective dipole arrays weighing 40 and 70 tons covering 5.8 to 18.8 MHz that could be rotated 360° and tilted in elevation from horizontal to 30° to adjust to changing
ionospheric The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...
skywave In radio communication, skywave or skip refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not limited by the curvatur ...
propagation conditions. It has a gain of 14.1 and 20.0 dB and is fully automatic in operation.


German reunification and after

On 3 October 1990, the day the GDR reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany, all transmitters were switched off and the station was provisionally transferred to German international shortwave broadcaster
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...
. In 1991 it was taken over by Deusche Bundespost Telecom, Germany's Federal telecommunications service. It was decided to upgrade the station with new transmitters and antennas. Four modular rotating
ALLISS Alliss is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Percy Alliss (1897–1975), English golfer *Peter Alliss (1931–2020), English golfer, son of Percy ** Peter Alliss Masters, children's charity founded by Peter Alliss See also * A ...
antennas and 500 kW transmitters made by Thomcast Communications were installed between 1995 and 1997. When the Deutsche Bundespost was privatized, all transmitters were transferred to Deutsche Telekom AG as its legal successor. From 2001 the broadcasting division belonged to the subsidiary T-Systems, where it was run as a separate division Media & Broadcast. In preparation for a sale, it was spun off on June 1, 2007 to T-Systems Media & Broadcast GmbH (M&B). In January 2008, the Media & Broadcast GmbH was merged with the French network operator Télédiffusion de France (TDF); since February 15, 2008 it has been operating as Media Broadcast GmbH. The company operates its own transmitter location in Nauen for shortwave broadcasting.


Current status

A new shortwave broadcasting system consisting of four rotating towers and four 500 kilowatt transmitters was built by Thomcast Communications between 1995 and 1997.


External links

* – transmitter building * – longwave aerial, demolished * – shortwave aerial * – modern shortwave aerials
The radio town of Nauen in HavellandMedia Broadcast Shortwave radioZentralmaste Grossfunkstelle Nauen 1Zentralmaste Grossfunkstelle Nauen 2ALISS-Antennen Nauen IALISS-Antennen Nauen IIALISS-Antennen Nauen IIIALISS-Antennen Nauen IV


References

{{Coord, 52.647721, N, 12.909772, E, type:landmark_region:DE-BB_source:dewiki, display=title Radio stations in Germany Buildings and structures in Havelland (district) History of telecommunications in Germany Radio masts and towers in Germany Demolished buildings and structures in Germany 1906 establishments in Germany