Elbe-Weser radio

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Elbe-Weser Radio ( call sign : "DAC") was a coastal radio station in Germany from 1904 to 1996 . Most recently it had its operations center in Altenwalde and the antenna fields in Sahlenburg near Cuxhaven . Elbe-Weser Radio is considered the first coastal radio station in Germany.

The beginnings

On April 1, 1904, the "Marinefunkenstation Cuxhaven" was built at the Alte Liebe in Cuxhaven. At first it served exclusively military purposes. From 1906 onwards it also sent telegrams of private content; therefore, from around 1910, post officials were also active in the station in addition to the navy. Finally, on April 1, 1912, the station was completely taken over by the Reich Postal Administration. Since then it has been operated as a coastal radio station for public marine radio . The First World War severely restricted the public maritime radio service, and the Reich Postal Administration was only able to resume operations without restrictions on February 21, 1919.

The time up to the Second World War

In 1926 the radio station moved to the Cuxhaven post office. The radio technology had developed considerably in the meantime, so the previously used sound spark transmitters were replaced by tube transmitters . In order to avoid that the transmitter and receiving system interfere with each other, they were spatially separated - as was customary with coastal radio stations later. In 1928 a new transmitter was built in Sahlenburg, the wooden towers of the antennas were visible from afar in the mouth of the Elbe. The reception point in the post office was soon relocated because the building in the city center was not the ideal location for radio reception and there was strong interference. So the reception point was quickly set up in a gazebo in the Duhnen district. Not until 1930 was it possible to move into a new radio station in Berensch . Only since then has the radio station been called "Elbe-Weser Radio" .

The new building of the radio station and the expansion of the equipment pool had the effect for the users that for the first time voice radio could be operated; With the telegraph radio previously used , it was always necessary to have a trained professional radio operator on board, which was no longer absolutely necessary.

The test for the radiotelephony certificate was relatively easy to acquire, and deep-sea fishing in particular made use of it. This meant that Elbe-Weser Radio was the main point of contact for deep-sea fishing until World War II . Its traffic area in the territory of the North Sea comprised the area from Norderney to Kiel and beyond that all areas of the North Sea that were fished by German fishers (such as the Barents Sea , Spitsbergen and Iceland ).

During the Second World War, the radio traffic was then limited to the perception of the sea emergency service and to air warnings for the German merchant fleet, since the receiving radio station was occupied by the navy right at the beginning of the war . At the end of the Second World War, German merchant shipping was destroyed.

After the Second World War

Elbe-Weser Radio in the service of the Royal Navy

The Elbe-Weser Radio was the only German coastal radio station to survive the war undamaged and initially came under the command of the Royal Navy . This ensured that the sea emergency service was maintained, not least for the safety of its own ships. Effective help was also offered to some of the Allied supply boats that were in distress in the German Bight . This ensured the continued existence of Elbe-Weser Radio and the radio station was soon assigned further tasks. A spring recorder connection was switched between the receiving point and the headquarters of the Royal Navy to enable better and faster communication . Elbe-Weser Radio then took over the rapidly increasing transmission of telegrams between the British supply ships and troop carriers and their offices in Cuxhaven. At the same time, a weather report in English was broadcast twice a day .

At the beginning of August, the first German fish steamers were allowed to sail back into the North Sea, the radio links with them were guaranteed by Elbe-Weser Radio . With the re-emergence of the fish fleet, the radio links with the fishermen also increased, and their ships were now all equipped with radio systems. And the tasks became more and more extensive. New lightships , "Amrumbank" and "Außeneider", were laid out, and the famous "Elbe 1" in particular ensured a further increase in radio traffic, as it was ordered to report all ships passing to the British port authorities. Then there was also the radio connection with the rescue tugs .

By the late summer of 1945, the radio traffic from Elbe-Weser Radio had long since exceeded the pre-war figures.

This large amount of radio traffic caused the Royal Navy, for which Elbe-Weser Radio continued to work almost exclusively, to relocate the receiving radio station to the Navy building in Cuxhaven in order to be able to better monitor radio traffic.

Again under my own direction

At the beginning of 1946 the Royal Navy relinquished responsibility for Elbe-Weser Radio and the civilian character of this station soon came to the fore again. The receiving radio station was relocated again after the old station in Cuxhaven no longer met the requirements. The company has now moved to the former marine direction finding station in Altenwalde. At that time, shipping was very hindered by the sea ​​mines that were still everywhere or that were drifting in the tidal current , and Elbe-Weser Radio reported the mine positions and was therefore very important for the safety of ships in the North Sea.

From 1947 the icebreakers on the Lower Elbe were allowed to carry out radio communications again, in 1948 public telegram traffic was permitted again, and in 1949 general radio communications with German ships were finally permitted. The tasks of the coast radio station continued to grow and had tripled by December 1951 compared to the pre-war figures.

DF radio network North Sea

In order to improve the sea emergency service and the assistance with navigation , a so-called DF radio network, which made it possible to determine the location of every ship that had a telegraph radio transmitter on board. The Peilfunkstelle was on the island Neuwerk been set up and started its operation in 1946 on. Elbe-Weser Radio was the control station of the North Sea direction finding network .

Connection with Heligoland

After the island of Helgoland was released by the British on March 1, 1952, it had to be reconnected to the telecommunications network of the German Federal Post Office . This task was initially taken over by Elbe-Weser Radio , which established a radio wave connection with the island. The boundary wave connection was also used sporadically later, e.g. B. if the submarine cable was disturbed; until finally a connection from Heligoland was established via a modern radio link .

The time until 1958

The ship security contract of 1948 obliged all ships with a tonnage of over 500 GRT (previously 1600 GRT) to acquire at least one radio set for safety reasons; this value was reduced again in 1965, this time to 300 GRT. As a result, the number of operated marine radio stations (ships) and thus the communication traffic increased drastically. This ultimately led to Elbe-Weser Radio , as part of the reorganization of the coastal radio stations, handing over part of its tasks to Norddeich Radio . The technical facilities in the Cuxhaven area were fully preserved, but were remotely controlled by Norddeich Radio .

At Elbe-Weser Radio, the tasks relating to radio beacons and sea emergency services remained.

Introduction of VHF radio

The establishment of a VHF marine radio service also began around 1958, as it was recognized that the VHF range enabled interference-free radio coverage in the local area. The smaller devices and antenna systems made it possible that even the smallest sports boats could now be equipped with radio. The mediated conversations were now both of a business nature (contacts between the ship's command and shipping company or between ships) and of a private nature (contact between crew members and relatives on land).

The VHF operations center and the transmission mast of Elbe-Weser Radio were from April 1, 1961 on the "Holter Höhe", the highest point in Cuxhaven. Radio traffic continued to rise steadily: in 1958 only 150 calls were made, in 1961 there were 47,000 and in 1967 over 96,000 calls. Elbe-Weser Radio thus took over more than half of all VHF radio traffic from German coastal radio stations.

The end of Elbe-Weser Radio as an official coastal radio station

At Elbe-Weser Radio too , technical developments continued unstoppably. The first experiments with satellite radio were carried out there as early as 1968 . In a document from the department at that time it is mentioned that satellite radio “is possible with astonishingly simple equipment ”. It was precisely that satellite radio with GMDSS that almost thirty years later made coastal radio stations, including Elbe-Weser Radio , superfluous.

On December 15, 1996, Elbe-Weser Radio was finally closed.

Current situation

After the coastal radio stations of Deutsche Telekom were switched off , a private network of German coastal radio stations was installed. The current operator DP07 -Seefunk continues to operate a remote station in Cuxhaven under the name "Elbe-Weser Radio". Until 2005 this station was at the old location "Holter Höhe", today it is located in the Cuxhaven Maritime School .

Individual evidence

  1. From the carrier pigeon to the spark blowing. Retrieved May 2, 2015 .
  2. Online report from DP07 marine radio, accessed on January 12, 2008

Web links

See also