Transmitter Torfhaus

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Transmitter Torfhaus
Image of the object
VHF transmission mast on the left, next to it the directional radio antenna carrier
Basic data
Place: Lerchenköpfe (north tip)
near Torfhaus in the Harz Mountains
Country: Lower Saxony
Country: Germany
Altitude : 801  m above sea level NN
Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 31.6 "  N , 10 ° 32 ′ 5.6"  E
Use: Telecommunication system , radio transmitter
Accessibility: Transmission system not accessible to the public
Owner : German radio tower (DFMG)
Data on the transmission system
Number of towers / masts: 2
Height of the towers / masts : 130  m , 57 m
Construction time: 1960s
Operating time: since the 1960s
Last modification (transmitter) : 1990s
Waveband : FM transmitter
Radio : VHF broadcasting
Send types: Cellular radio , directional radio
Further data
Client : German Federal Post Office
Building material masts: steel
Position map
Transmitter Torfhaus (Lower Saxony)
Transmitter Torfhaus
Transmitter Torfhaus
Localization of Lower Saxony in Germany
Transmitter Torfhaus

The transmitter Torfhaus is a transmitter of the Deutsche Funkturm GmbH (DFMG) near Torfhaus in the Upper Harz .

The 130 meter high transmission mast is now only used to broadcast three radio programs on ultra-short wave (VHF), while the smaller antenna support is intended for directional radio . During the division of Germany, it was one of the transmitting and receiving points for the radio link to West Berlin .

In the immediate vicinity is the Harz-West transmitter of the North German Broadcasting Corporation (NDR), which broadcasts public ( free-to-air ) television programs in the DVB-T2 HD standard as well as four NDR radio programs. The digital ZDF bouquet (formerly ZDFmobil ) can be received via the Brocken station .

freenet TV , the fee-based DVB-T2-HD platform from Media Broadcast , is not broadcast by the stations in Torfhaus and on the Brocken .

Geographical location

The facility is located east of federal highway 4 on the north summit (approx.  801  m above sea level ) of the Lerchenköpfe , a two-pinned ridge . The mast of the NDR transmitter Harz-West is on the southern tip.

Transmitters

Broadcasting mast

As part of the construction of a television broadcasting network for broadcasting the second and third television programs built the German Federal Post Office in the 1960s, a 150 meter high guyed steel tube mast . The mast, which was shortened by 20 meters to 130 m at the beginning of the 1990s, is currently used to broadcast the three radio programs Deutschlandfunk , Radio ffn and Antenne Niedersachsen in the VHF range.

At the “Geneva Wave Conference” in 1984 there were plans to broadcast the RIAS program from the Torfhaus station on the frequency 100.4 MHz with 100 kW transmission power . However, this was never realized because WDR 4 , which is transmitted on 100.5 MHz by the Bielstein transmitter in the Teutoburg Forest , would have been disturbed. The three radio programs broadcast by Torfhaus can also be received with commercially available radios in East Westphalia-Lippe , the entire north of Hesse, in the north-west of Thuringia and in the west of Saxony-Anhalt.

Directional radio antenna carrier

Shortly after the beginning of the Berlin blockade in June 1948 experiments were made, the telephone network of the three Western sectors of Berlin by microwave with West Germany to join. It was to be expected that the Soviet military administration in Germany (SMAD) would also interrupt the telephone lines going west from the Berlin remote office in the American sector of the enclosed city.

From Torfhaus, the establishment of a radio link to Berlin (West) was difficult because of the large distance of around 190 km to be bridged across the Soviet zone and was at the limit of what was physically feasible. Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve 1948, the first radio link with eight channels was made available. For better decoupling , the transmitting and receiving stations in Berlin and Torfhaus were set up separately. In Torfhaus they stood about 600 meters apart on the two crests of the larks' heads . By February 1950, a total of 45 telephone channels were available, which were transmitted in VHF Band I.

In the 1950s , up to 318 additional telephone channels were added between the two new locations in Berlin-Nikolassee and Höhbeck , which were only around 135 kilometers apart.

In Torfhaus, a 45 m high lattice mast with two parabolic segment antennas ( Cassegrain antennas ), each 10 meters in diameter , stood on the northern tip of the Lerchenköpfe from 1959 . Its massive construction paid tribute to the wind forces that often occur due to storms in this exposed location. For the first time, the technique of scatter radio transmission was used. The opposite station was the new directional radio station Berlin 3 on Schäferberg , where an identical system was located. In the 2.2 GHz range, three operating lines, each with 120 analog telephone channels (360 channels), and a protective line were implemented. After it was decommissioned in 1991, the steel lattice tower in Torfhaus was completely dismantled, while the 45-meter tower in Berlin is mainly used for mobile communications today.

The 57 m high, also exceptionally massive, steel lattice tower, which is still in Torfhaus today, was erected in the mid-1960s. From 1966 to 1995 he carried two Cassegrain antennas, each 18 m in diameter ( antenna gain : 48 dB). With a transmitter output power of 1 kW, it ran from July 1967 to the beginning of 1995 directional radio links in the 1.9 GHz range to the Berlin-Schäferberg telecommunications tower , on whose shaft two identical parabolic mirrors hung. When fully expanded, three operating lines with 960 analogue telephone channels each (a total of 2880 channels) were available, which also allowed the transmission of two analogue television programs (exchange line).

The telephone network in West Germany was last connected to West Berlin via four directional radio links (Berlin-Schäferberg - Torfhaus or Gartow / Höhbeck as well as Berlin-Frohnau  - Clenze or Gartow / Höhbeck) without having to use a cable line through the GDR that could be bugged. The encrypted telephone traffic over these radio links was cleared up by the MfS (HA III) and the NVA in the GDR, but not disturbed.

The system is not to be confused with a similar one on the nearby Bocksberg , which was built by the British military in 1948 for a corresponding military relay station to Berlin and was later operated by the US military.

Current programs and frequencies

The station Torfhaus currently broadcasts three VHF programs:

Analog radio (VHF)

Frequency  
(in MHz) 		program RDS PS Regionalization ERP  
(in kW)
102.4 Radio ffn ___ffn__ ,
ffn BS-H 		Braunschweig 100
103.5 Deutschlandfunk (DLF) ___Dlf__ - 100
106.3 Aerial Lower Saxony ANTENNA_ Braunschweig 100

Previous programs and frequencies

Analog television ( PAL )

Until the switch to digital television in 2007, the Torfhaus station served as the basic analog network station for ZDF and the N3 television program .

channel Frequency  
(MHz) 		program ERP  
(kW) 		Antenna pattern
round (ND) /
directional (D) 		Polarization
horizontal (H) /
vertical (V)
23 487.25 ZDF 500 D. H
53 727.25 NDR television (Lower Saxony) 500 D. H

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )