The Heilsberg transmitter was a large radio transmitting station operated by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft between 1930 and 1945 in the German Province of East Prussia. It was sited approximately 3 km northwest of Heilsberg (known after 1946 as Lidzbark Warmiński), on the road to Preußisch Eylau (Bagrationovsk).

History

It went live on 15 December 1930 with a transmitting power of 60 kilowatts, using a vertical cage antenna, which was hung with a rope spun between two 102 m tall free-standing wood towers 200 m apart. In 1935, the transmitting power was increased to 100 kilowatts and the vertical cage aerial was replaced by a dipole with top capacity and coil, which was carried by a 115 m high free-standing wood tower. In 1940, this was replaced with a 151 m high guyed mast of square cross section lattice steel, which was insulated against ground. In addition, a triangle plane antenna and a 50 m high guyed mast (also insulated against ground) were installed. On 31 January 1945, the facility was largely destroyed by the withdrawing Wehrmacht armed forces. After World War II a transmitter was operated on the site by the Soviet Foreign Service. From the mid 1950s until the mid 1990s a local program was broadcast there with low power. A shortwave facility for cross-border skywave jamming beamed towards the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria has existed in Lidzbark Warmiński. The jamming facility was shut off for good in late 1988. The present-day Broadcast Transmitting Site at Lidzbark Warmiński which has a 83 m tall antenna is today used for broadcasting of Radio Maryja on 106,2 MHz with 10 kW ERP and the TV programme TVP 1 on 527,25 MHz with 200 kW ERP.