DE : Germany had broadband radio since 1930s!

This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated October 13, 2013 at 11:50 am by Pat McDonald.

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October 12, 2013 at 4:19 pm #1056572
General Lighting
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I got this from an older chap in the Netherlands who once had an entire website about the service explained in both Dutch and German – I’ve been given permission to use it and translate the text. That bit might take a while as there’s a lot of it, but this is the diagram (I think its the original German engineers one translated into Dutch).

At the Telephone Exchange, 6 analogue radiostations were introduced to the telephone wires using trafos and capacitors (above the audio frequencies). At each house, a similar filter was put before the telephone (so the radio stations did not get in the phone), and also a box on the wall with another filter (just like todays ADSL filter!) which this time let through the radio signals to a LF radio (long wave). there also was a switch so a normal antenna and earth could be used to pick up signals from the air.

as there was a lot of interference in the airwaves (especially from electric trams and light railways, which Germany has a lot of) many folk preferred to use this system. It ran from 1938 until 1967 when the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom replaced it by the cable TV network delivering via coax cable PAL TV and FM radio to each house.
October 12, 2013 at 4:26 pm #1276002
General Lighting
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PS: this is the scale on a German radio of that era, look at the bottom.

Droitwich and Paris are still there (now BBC Radio 4 LW and France-Inter) but at slightly different frequencies (though it would not make a difference on an analogue radio dial)
October 12, 2013 at 7:15 pm #1276006
MadPsy
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That’s almost genius. It’s amazing what you can shove down long haul twisted pair copper.
October 13, 2013 at 5:10 am #1276007
Pat McDonald
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So what you are saying is, in the 1930s, domestic German “radios” didn’t actually receive “radio signals” that could have come from anywhere outside Germany, but instead took their signals from the telephone company who of course forwarded all foreign stations without any form of censorship or oversight by Josef Goebbels at all. Because for some reason, the radio technology that worked fine just about everywhere else didn’t work in Germany because Germany “had a lot of trams”.

Given the government of Germany for most of the 1930s and very nearly half the 1940s, is anybody really that surprised? 😉
October 13, 2013 at 9:07 am #1276003
General Lighting
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although the Reichpost (and later DBP-Telekom) did have control over what signals went via the telephone wires, and its often claimed the Deutscher Kleinempfänger had low sensitivity to “not pick up foreign stations” this system predated the war and persisted until the 1960s, and at least peacetime versions had a switch so the listener could use a normal antenna (you can see this arrangement in the circuitry above).

there were British radio relay systems but these just were a giant 100V PA system and needed separate wires.

German radio receivers were of very high standards in the 20th century, and post war there was nothing stopping anyone listening to Droitwitch or Paris is they
wished and many did so, but they would have to put up with interference. Trams and trains use the overhead pantograph system and for short distance around 750-1500DC, there is some arcing when the pantograph is raised and lowered, and you can imagine what that does to LF andf MF reception.
October 13, 2013 at 11:40 am #1276004
General Lighting
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PS: When the coax-cable services were deployed to houses for the PAL colour TV, many other countries across Northen Europe followed suit. The PTT would install the cable and put up a socket for VHF/UHF TV, and another also for and II FM radio. The customer could then use extension leads to bring the signal to whatever receivers they required. Only commercial channels were (sometimes) encrypted, the PSB channels were free, on the grounds you already had paid taxes for the PTT and national broadcaster.

As well as the mainstream channels, many alternative channels such as dance music stations were allowed to send in signals at the head end. Band II FM was particularly handy for a hi-fi / music room (often next to the workshop and hobby room), as folk usually put this somwhere in the middle of the house if possible to avoid noise nuisance to neighbours (Germans are particularly fussy about this), as when you buy a modern Japanese hi fi tuner or receiver it still needs a good antenna and strong signal to get stereo reception.

We did implement this here in Blighty in a rather half-arsed way in the 1990s, about 20-30 years after everyone else (and this was after Auntie’s boffins, as well as those of the GPO, GCHQ and MI6 (who were all the same lot) confiscating the original cable TV-system from DE after the war as they were amazed by how it worked (they did use some of the techniques internally within the BBC and GPO before releasing it to civillians).

TBH Britain seemed to be still fighting World War II until about 1988….

Pat – how’s your German? (It need only be to high school level, and if you can understand Dutch much is mutually intelligible). I’ve got the links for every telephone engineers manual for the German Post Office from 1938 to 1988 and you can see for yourself what ordinary German citizens had (even just years after most of the country got bombed flat). Makes you think that Britain might have won the war, but it lost the peace….
October 13, 2013 at 11:50 am #1276005
General Lighting
Moderator
@MadPsy 557396 wrote:

That’s almost genius. It’s amazing what you can shove down long haul twisted pair copper.

yes, if it stays in good order and does not have splices at random points, reversals of pairs or split and crossed pairs, which sadly is not always the case with Openreach.

On the German website the retired engineer metioned that they had a “disorder map” which was like the sort of maps they once used (and so did we) to work out where to drop bombs, but used this time for plotting out where people reported “Mein Telefon is Kaputt”, and with this map if lots of people reported faults in certain areas it was easier to narrow down where there might be a bad cable.

Also in DE and NL its a criminal offence for any company to dig up roads without co-ordinating first with the Council (who have staff available at all times who make quick decisions) and usually a trench is provided between the bicycle lane and the roads for motor cars, which is sectioned off into compartments for water, gas, electric, telecoms all separated at correct EU safety distances..

you can tell the difference when you look at our Internet radio stats and which European nations are most likely to be tuned in 😉
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