Togblekovhe radio station
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Togblekovhe radio station
KBL
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| Basic data | ||||
| Place: | Lome | |||
| Region: | Maritime | |||
| Country: | Togo | |||
| Coordinates: 6 ° 16 ′ 24 " N , 1 ° 12 ′ 49" E | ||||
| Use: | Telecommunication system | |||
| Owner : | The German Imperium | |||
| Demolition : | August 1914 | |||
| Data on the transmission system | ||||
| Construction time: | 1913-1914 | |||
| Operating time: | May 1914 – August 1914 | |||
| Waveband : | AM station | |||
| Send types: | Directional radio , mobile marine radio | |||
| Position map | ||||
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The Togblekovhe radio station was a transmission and reception system for wireless telegraphy ( extinguishing spark transmitter ) in the German colony of Togo in the Lome-Land administrative district .
The station was built on behalf of the German Empire by the German company Telefunken in 1913 and 1914. The location was near the place Togblekovhe, about 16 km north of Lomé . The railway line Lomé-Atakpamé ( hinterland railway ) ran nearby, which also had a station called Togblekovhe at kilometer 17. The station acted as a smaller coastal radio station of the large radio station Kamina , which was located near Atakpamé in the interior of Togo.
location
Togblekovhe (today: Togblé Kopé) was in the hinterland of the port city of Lomé. This was mainly due to military reasons: In accordance with the range of the ship's guns at the time, the 16 km distance from the coast was taken into account as a safeguard against artillery fire . This security initially seemed all the more necessary as a large radio station was planned in the German colony of Cameroon , through which Togblekovhe would have established contact between Togo and Germany in the event of war. Ultimately, however, a transcontinental station was only built in Kamina to the north.
construction
The government of Togo provided a site with a diameter of about 400 meters and committed itself to the “transfer” (often forced recruitment) of African workers. In addition, it took over the supervision of the construction, the acceptance of the buildings and guaranteed the duty-free import of building materials and equipment. The radio-technical construction of the station was carried out by an engineer and a fitter from the Telefunken company, who left Hamburg on September 25, 1913. The handover of the station was originally scheduled for March 15, 1914, but this was not complied with due to serious illness of both builders and the engineer's early return. As a temporary measure, staff from the Kamina radio station were used.
business
Trial operations began on March 20, 1914. After the inspection of the station by the senior official of the Reich Postal Administration in Lomé, Post Inspector Laage, it was handed over on April 12, 1914. The official start of radio service with ships at sea fell on May 11, 1914.
The station had the official callsign KBL . The range was around 1,100 to 1,500 kilometers. It was transmitted on wavelengths of 300, 600, 1,400, 1,800 and 2,500 meters (120 to 1000 kHz ). The working hours were 7:00 am to 10:00 am and 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm GMT . A radio message of 10 words cost 6.50 marks .
End of the station
At the beginning of the First World War in Togo , at the beginning of August 1914, the German colonists quickly withdrew from Lomé into the interior of the country. In view of the maritime and military importance of the station, a German command was subsequently ordered back in order not to let the radio station fall into enemy hands. The command arrived at Togblekovhe by railroad Atakpamé-Lomé on August 11, 1914 and made the station unusable before the final retreat.
See also
literature
- Reinhard Klein-Arendt: The coast radio station Togblekovhe, in: (ders.); "Kamina calls Nauen!" The radio stations in the German colonies . Cologne: Wilhelm Herbst Verlag, 1995, pp. 207f. ISBN 3-923925-58-1
Web links
- Keyword "Togblekovhe" in the German Colonial Lexicon from 1920
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmut Schroeter, Roel Ramaer: The railways in the once German protected areas / German Colonial Railways . Krefeld: Röhr-Verlag, 1993, p. 105, ISBN 3-88490-184-2
- ↑ Peter Sebald: Togo 1884-1914 - A history of the German "model colony" on the basis of official sources . Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1988, p. 600.