Tag Archives: Deutsche Welle Kigali Closure

Deutsche Welle closes Kigali relay station

DW's relay station in Kigali (Source: Deutsche Welle)

DW’s relay station in Kigali (Source: Deutsche Welle)

(Source: KT Press via Richard Cuff)

Germans Close Business in Rwanda After Half Century Lease Expires

Once a powerful facility in the region, the German owned Deutsche Welle radio center at Kinyinya hill outside Kigali is finally and completely shutting down. It’s no more.

In 1965, Rwanda leased 68.4 hectares on Kinyinya hill for fifty years to the Germans- that later set up a massive facility to boost Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster.

“We are stopping our short wave transmitters today and then next week we will start dismantling them and the masts in order to meet the deadline of August when our license expires,” said Bernhard Ahlborn, the deputy director of Deutsche Welle.

On March 28, 2015 the facility stopped its operations, to begin dismantling their equipment, to pave away for the handover of the Land to Rwanda government.

The Germans will today hand over the premises of the relay station with its infrastructure to the Government of Rwanda, to mark the end of 50 year concession agreement.

The Deutsche Welle relay station in Kigali has been serving African and the Middle East audiences. It was the only firm facility of the kind that was remaining. The Germans had similar facilities in other 60 countries.

Continue reading on the KT Press website…

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Recording Deutsche Welle Kigali’s final broadcast and remembering its early days

DW's relay station in Kigali (Source: Deutsche Welle)

DW’s relay station in Kigali (Source: Deutsche Welle)

Yesterday, Deutsche Welle transmitted its final broadcast from the Kigali, Rwanda relay station. Since I’ve only had moderate luck hearing the Kigali site the past few days–especially on 31 meters–I fired up the TitanSDR Pro (which is still currently under review) and set it to record all three final afternoon broadcasts from Kigali on 12,005, 15,275 and 17,800 kHz.

TitanSDR-DeutscheWelle-FinalBroadcasts

As you can see from the screenshot above, Kigali produced a very strong signal on 17,800 kHz. The TitanSDR recorded the full broadcast, starting with one minute of the transmitter tuning, then one hour of DW’s French language service, followed by one hour of DW’s Hausa language service…then the transmitter went silent.

The recording begins around 1659 UTC on March 28, 2015 on 17,800 kHz:

Kigali’s early days

Last week, SWLing Post reader Bob LaRose (W6ACU) sent me the following message and scans:

“Here’s some nostalgia from [when the Kigali relay] opened, 50 years ago!”

Kigali Front

Kigali 2

Bob then followed this with another email:

“I dug into the “vault” and I found [the] 1964 Third Quarter issue of “Hallo, Friends” from Deutsche Welle that talks about the “new” Kigali station as it was being built. The 1965 issues did not cover the actual inauguration.”

DW-HalloFriends-BobLaRose

Click here to download this page as a PDF.

Many thanks for digging through your archives and sharing this wonderful DW nostalgia, Bob! It’s simply brilliant!

Readers: If you have shortwave nostalgia you would like to share on the SWLing Post, please contact me.

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Deutsche Welle to close Kigali relay March 28, 2015

DW's relay station in Kigali (Source: Deutsche Welle)

DW’s relay station in Kigali (Source: Deutsche Welle)

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Mike, who writes:

“I wanted to pass on a quick (and unfortunate) word that Deutsche Welle will be closing its Kigali, Rwanda relay on March 28th. This word came from the Wavescan program on WRMI. I would highly recommend that anyone who would like a QSL response from DW should get their correspondences in as soon as possible. It seems that the site will be dismantled shortly afterward. In addition it seems that tests are ongoing at RFI’s Issoudun site by DW to replace some of the broadcasts that used to originate from their Kigali relay.

I find the closing of another landmark relay a greatly displeasing event especially due to the short time frame between the announcement of the closure and the actual closure date. I find it surprising as well due to the lack of mention of any recent budget cuts at Deutsche Welle.”

As Mike mentions, the relay is scheduled to close on March 28, 2015–if you’d like to log this site, you’ll need to do so very soon. Click here for current schedules. Kigali is Deutsche Welle’s only remaining relay station.

RadioWorld magazine also posted a short news item about the Kigali closure–click here to read.

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