Nauen Transmitter Station
Encyclopedia
Nauen
Nauen is a town in the Havelland district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated 38 km west of Berlin and 26 km northwest of Potsdam.-History:...
, Havelland (Kreis), Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, is the oldest transmitting plant in the world. It was founded on 1 April 1906 by Telefunken
Telefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...
engineer R. Hirsch on a 40-hectare property north of Nauen, leased from Fideikommissar Fritz Stotze.
History
Before World War I, the Nauen station was a research station of TelefunkenTelefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...
. Trial service was initiated on 9 August 1906, and operational service began on 16 August 1906 using spark-gap transmitter
Spark-gap transmitter
A spark-gap transmitter is a device for generating radio frequency electromagnetic waves using a spark gap.These devices served as the transmitters for most wireless telegraphy systems for the first three decades of radio and the first demonstrations of practical radio were carried out using them...
s. An umbrella antenna
Umbrella antenna
An umbrella antenna is a top-loaded electrically lengthened monopole antenna, consisting in most cases of a mast fed against ground, to which six or more wires are connected at the top, sloping downwards...
was supported by a steel lattice mast 100 metres high, insulated from earth.
Since the station had no commercial power, a 35 HP steam tractor
Steam tractor
A steam tractor is a vehicle powered by a steam engine which is used for pulling.In North America, the term steam tractor usually refers to a type of agricultural tractor powered by a steam engine, used extensively in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.In Great Britain, the term steam tractor...
was installed in the transmitter building, a light half timbered house, which powered a 50 Hz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
alternator producing 24 kVA output power.
Arc transmitters
Arc converter
The arc converter, sometimes called the arc transmitter or Poulsen arc after its inventor Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen, is a device that used an electric arc to convert direct current electricity into radio frequency alternating current...
were installed in 1909, which increased the range of the station to 5000 kilometres.
A radio link with the German colony of Togoland
Togoland
Togoland was a German protectorate 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. The colony was established during the period generally known as the "Scramble for Africa"...
was established for the first time in 1911. 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. This was replaced by a V-shaped antenna supported by five masts at end of 1912. In 1913 the first high power machine transmitter
Alexanderson alternator
An Alexanderson alternator is a rotating machine invented by Ernst Alexanderson in 1904 for the generation of high frequency alternating current up to 100 kHz, for use as a radio transmitter...
was installed in the station. It worked with frequency doubling using the Arco
Georg von Arco
Georg Wilhelm Alexander Hans Graf von Arco was a German physicist, radio pioneer, and one of the joint founders of the "Society for Wireless Telegraphy" which became the Telefunken company. He was an engineer and the technical director of Telefunken...
system.
A large antenna, 1037 metres long, was installed on 10 February 1914 supported by a 260 metre mast and two 120 metre masts. A new modern transmitter building was also installed.
First World War and the interwar period
Room 40
In the history of Cryptanalysis, Room 40 was the section in the Admiralty most identified with the British cryptoanalysis effort during the First World War.Room 40 was formed in October 1914, shortly after the start of the war...
and the American MI-8
Black Chamber
The Cipher Bureau otherwise known as The Black Chamber was the United States' first peacetime cryptanalytic organization, and a forerunner of the National Security Agency...
devoted much effort to intercepting and decoding communications from the station during the war.
In 1916, on urge from Bredow, major additional development of the station took place. The antenna system was enormously increased in size and additional longwave machine transmitters were installed. In 1920 the main antenna, carried on two 260 metre and four 125 metre high masts, was 2484 metres long.
At a right angle to the large antenna was a smaller antenna, carried by three masts, one of which looked like an electricity power transmission pylon. The last longwave
Longwave
In radio, longwave refers to parts of radio spectrum with relatively long wavelengths. The term is a historic one dating from the early 20th century, when the radio spectrum was considered to consist of long, medium and short wavelengths...
transmitter was installed at Nauen in 1923. Shortwave
Shortwave
Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...
transmitters were installed after 1924.
From 1918 to 1931 the station was run by Transradio
Transradio
Transradio is a German radio communication systems producer, specialised in research, development and design of AM, VHF/FM and DRM broadcasting systems....
AG. On 1 January 1932 the German Reichspost
Reichspost
- Imperial Reichspost :* The Imperial Reichspost was the name of the postal service of the Holy Roman Empire, founded by Franz von Taxis in 1495...
took over the station.
Although vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
transmitters had long been the state of the art in the 1930s, the high power machine transmitters were again modernized in 1937.
Second World War and the post-war period
In World War II, the VLF-transmitters served mainly to transmit instructions to submerged submarines. 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 station remained silent until 1955 and the building was used for potato storage. The station began to install shortwave transmitters in 1955, first only for diplomatic communications, and then for foreign broadcast in 1958. 39 rhombic antenna
Rhombic antenna
A rhombic antenna is a broadband directional antenna co-invented by Edmond Bruce and Harald Friis, mostly commonly used in HF ranges.- Technical Detail :...
s were erected for transmitting.
In the 1960s one of the first rotating shortwave broadcast antennas was built nearby at the Dechtower dyke. This antenna, which still exists, has a height of 70 metres and it supports two antenna fields weighing 40 and 70 tons.
In 1972, near the rotating antenna, a shortwave curtain antenna
HRS type antennas
HRS type antennas are more or less the standard antenna used for long distance high power shortwave broadcasting .- History of HRS design :...
was built and further transmitters went in service. When Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until 1989, serving as Head of State as well from Willi Stoph's relinquishment of that post in 1976....
was in Chile on a state visit, a new shortwave curtain antenna beamed toward Chile was built.
After German reunification, all transmitters and antennas, except for shortwave broadcast, were switched off and dismantled.
Current status
A new shortwave broadcasting system consisting of four rotating towers and four 500 kilowatt transmitters was built by Thomcast between 1995 and 1997.External links
– transmitter building – longwave aerial, demolished – shortwave aerial – modern shortwave aerials- http://www.funkstadt-nauen.de/fun00061.html
- http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=58370
- http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=58368
- http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=41635
- http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=41637
- http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=41638
- http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=41639