Dessau
232.5 M
1 290 kHz
The mother mast, bolted to the workshop roof. Signal strongest after dusk, when the foundry cools.
Main transmitter
Dessau · 232.5 metres · since 1923
Funk Haus 1923
Radio for the constructed ear.
Imaginary broadcasts from the Dessau workshops — sirens, saw-blades and string quartets — transmitted daily in three colours. The poster machine is our studio: it turns while we are on air.
01
Programm
Jetzt im Äther · Now broadcasting
Nr. 01 · 00:00 – 06:00
Blue Hour
Nachtdienst. Six hours of circles, played very slowly.
00:00 elapsed
360 min
02
Manifest
The loudspeaker is a building. We furnish it.
Built, not performed
Funkhaus 1923 transmits from one room above the Dessau joinery. Every programme is constructed the way a chair is constructed: material chosen, joints argued over, ornament refused. What you hear is the working drawing, broadcast.
Three colours of sound
Our schedule keys every broadcast to Kandinsky’s 1923 questionnaire: the triangle sounds yellow, the square sounds red, the circle sounds blue. Close your eyes during the midday concert and you will still see it.
The honest signal
No echo added, no silence trimmed. When the metal shop pauses, you hear the pause. When the siren tires at four o’clock, so does the broadcast. Radio, we believe, should keep workshop hours.
03
Frequenz
Three transmitters carry the signal across the republic. Tune by wavelength, not by habit — the ear, like the eye, must be exercised daily.
Weimar
410.0 M
731 kHz
The old address. Carries the morning drill only, out of respect and mild stubbornness.
Relay · 06:00–07:30
Berlin
505.7 M
593 kHz
Joins at 20:00 for the night transmission, so pilots and painters share one weather.
Night relay · 20:00–00:00