Wertachtal transmitter site

It was located in the valley of the Wertach River near the village of Amberg (Swabia), and was originally operated by Deutsche Bundespost, and later by Media Broadcast GmbH.

The transmitters were supplied by AEG-Telefunken and the antennas by Brown, Boveri & Cie. About 600 people worked to build the site.

By September 1971, six out of 25 towers had been completed, with heights reading to 125 m. They held the first antennas, directed towards North America and the Near East.

Test transmissions began on 10 April 1970 using the 500 kW transmitters; they stopped at the beginning of the Olympics.

After the Olympics finished, the site was used by Germany's national shortwave broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Since Voice of America wanted a long-term lease on the transmitters, new antennas were installed replacing the old ones.

This was a joint venture of T-Systems, Telefunken Sendertechnik (which became TRANSRADIO Sendersysteme Berlin, which no longer exists), and of RIZ Zagreb.

At the end of 2006, Deutsche Welle discontinued its transmissions from Wertachtal, and moved them to a site at Woofferton in England.

To fulfill the necessity to connect any of the 16 transmitters to any of the 67 antennas, a cross-point switching matrix of 8 metres (26 ft) height with more than 1.000 elements was built up.

In the middle of the 80s the antenna-set was changed due to the intention of Voice of America to intensify transmitting in direction of Eastern Europe (in political meaning) and to North Africa.

Some other equipment was bought by Austrian broadcaster Österreichische Rundfunksender GmbH for its site at Moosbrunn.