Marnach Transmitter (Marnach)

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Marnach transmitter is a broacasting facility of RTL near Marnach in the northern parts of Luxemburg. Marnach transmitter was built in 1955 for enbettering the transmission of the English-speaking program on 1439 kHz, which was radiated since 1951 with an omnidirectional antenna from Junglinster, to the British Island and for a better transmission on this frequency to Germany at daytime. Therefore it got a directional antenna with switchable directional characteristic pointing toward Northnortheast toward Rhine-Ruhr area, Germany's most populated area and toward Westnorthwest in direction UK. This antenna was realized in form of a directional antenna consisting of three ground-fed 105 metre tall guyed mast radiators arranged in form of a isosceles triangle with a 90 degree angle. As transmitter two 100 kW units switched in paralell were used as it went in service in December 1955.

In 1956 the transmission power of Marnach mediumwave transmitter, which worked until 1978 on 1439 kHz and then on 1440 kHz was increased to 350 kW after the mediumwave transmitter of Junglinster was moved to Marnach. On July 15th, 1957 the German speaking program, which got rapidly very popular, started. In April 1958 the regular program service started, which was at daytime a German programme and at evening and nighttime the famous English program “2-0-8”.

In 1962 also a FM-transmitter was installed at the site of Marnach transmitter. For this transmitter a further mast was built. In 1965 the transmission power of the mediumwave transmitter was increased to 600 kW and in 1968 to 1200 kW, resulting in Marnach mediumwave transmitter to the most powerful privately owned mediumwave transmitter in the world at those days.

On January 17th, 1969 the FM-transmission mast of the station collapsed and damaged the transmitter building. For the FM-transmitters, which were planned to move in 1970 to the newly built Hosingen FM- and TV-mast, a temporary antenna was installed, which was dismantled after Hosingen transmitter went in service.

In 1969 a 60 metre tall guyed ground-fed antenna mast was built, which allowed by its stronger skywave a better radio supply of the British Islands at night as the consisting directional antenna. This antenna however was expanded in the 1970ies to a system consisting of 5 105 metre tall guyed masts. Nevertheless it did not work as desired and latter it was rebuilt again to the former 3 mast antenna. The 60 metre mast used for night transmissions got in 1976 a reflector in form of a free-standing 65 metre tall lattice tower with triangular cross section for bundling the radiated power to the British Islands at nighttime.

On December 31st, 1992 the transmission of the English speaking program of Radio Luxemburg was cancelled, while the transmitter remained in use for the German program "RTL Oldie Radio". Later the transmitter was often hired for other program supplyers. One of these supplyers was the Chinese foreign broadcasting service, which used it for transmitting programmes in foreign languages at the evening and the German pop music radio MEGARADIO, which used it in 2002/03 at daytime. In spring 2004 Marnach mediumwave transmitter worked first time in DRM-mode. At the beginning of 2005, it started regular DRM transmissions at daytime, while at nighttime the transmitter is still operated in the old AM mode in service, as there are not many radios available, which could demodulate programmes in DRM mode.