The Blosenbergturm is a former radio transmission tower built for the

German-language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

station DRS at

Beromünster Beromünster is a municipality in the district of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. On 1 January 2004 the former municipality of Schwarzenbach merged into the municipality of Beromünster.Canton of Lucerne The canton of Lucerne (german: Kanton Luzern rm, Chantun Lucerna french: Canton de Lucerne it, Canton Lucerna) is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the centre of Switzerland. The population of the canton (as of ) is . , the populati ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, in 1937. It radiated first at 529 kHz and later at 531 kHZ, the lowest officially allocated

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

in the European

medium-wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...

band. The Blosenbergturm is a self-radiating tower insulated against ground, i.e. the entire tower structure is used as an

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

. With a total height of it is currently the sixth tallest structure in Switzerland. It has a cabin at a height of , containing a coil for feeding the pinnacle, which is insulated against the rest of the tower, separately with high frequency power. Originally the tower was used as a dipole antenna, fed from the cabin. There was another, tall, freestanding lattice tower nearby, dismantled in 2011, which, like the Blosenbergturm, was a tower radiator insulated against ground. This tower, which was built in 1931, carried – together with a second tower, which was dismantled and rebuilt at Sankt Chrischona near Basel as a television transmission tower – a T-antenna for medium wave until 1962. After this date it was transformed into a tower radiator, serving as a backup transmitter for the Blosenbergturm itself. The

aircraft warning lights Aviation obstruction lighting is used to enhance the visibility of structures or fixed obstacles which may conflict with the safe navigation of aircraft. Obstruction lighting is commonly installed on towers, buildings, and even fences located i ...

on the Blosenbergturm have a special feature: at dawn a rotating beamer above the cabin comes into service. This beamer, which is much less bright than the beamers on the

Stuttgart TV Tower Fernsehturm Stuttgart ( en, Stuttgart TV Tower) is a telecommunications tower in Stuttgart, Germany. It was the first telecommunications tower in the world constructed from reinforced concrete, and it is the prototype for many such towers world ...

, is switched off at night and the red aircraft warning lights are turned on. By watching the blinking light on the pinnacle of the tower, one could detect whether the transmitter was working. The high electrical field surrounding the top of the tower when the transmitter was powered meant that at such times the light glowed faintly even in the blink breaks. The Beromünster transmitter was shut down at midnight (CET) on 28 December 2008, despite some protests against the measure. The 1931 backup tower was dismantled in 2011; the Blosenberg tower itself was declared a heritage monument and may become part of an on-site museum.

External links

*
Blosenbergturm
on SkyscraperPage.com. *

External links

See also