Re.: https://mediumwave.info/2024/01/25/germany-27/

Information missing from the Radio Magazine article: 
“The trading pawn in the hands of the U. S. had been the megawatt long wave transmitter located in Munich. The record shows that when the Soviets stopped jamming the VOA Russian programs in June of 1963, the VOA megawatt transmitter in Munich shut down very soon thereafter. In August 1968, when the Soviets resumed jamming of the VOA. […] the megawatt in Munich returned to the air. Again, in September of 1973 Soviet jamming against the VOA stopped and a month later the megawatt transmitter on 173 kHz went off the air. This off again-on again relation was rooted in the 1948 European Broadcasting Conference at Copenhagen where medium wave and long wave frequencies were assigned to the participating countries within Europe. Under the plan, 173 kHz was assigned to the USSR. […] The presence of the VOA megawatt transmitter in Munich appearing on the same frequency caused an acerbic reaction – the Soviets took the position that their 500 kW signal on 173 kHz from Moscow was being jammed”. (W.Edwards. Longwave Duel)

“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had a good laugh about what the State Department thought it was doing with the Munich transmitter in the hearings on the future of RFE and RL in May 1971. It broadcast on the same frequency as Radio Moscow but Martin Hillenbrand, assistant secretary for the European bureau of the State Department denied that the VOA was jamming in a technical sense. “They were merely broadcasting a perfectly intelligible programme on the same wavelength.” he said. The frequency, 173, had been allocated to Radio Moscow by the 1948 Copenhagen agreement but the State Department argued that because Germany was not a party to the Convention it was in order for the VOA to use it.” (War of the Black Heavens, Broadcasting in the Cold War, Michael Nelson)

Mike Barraclough (2024-01-26)

Google translated from French: 
On January 25, 1954, 70 years ago, the Voice of America broadcast for the first time on longwave to Eastern countries. The transmitter was located about twenty kilometers from Munich in the territory of the municipality of Erching (48°18’12.0″N 11°43’08.9″E).
The station was built in 1953. Its transmitter was a Continental Electronics 105C, it broadcast on 173 kHz with a power of 1000 kW. At the time, it was the most powerful long-wave transmitter in Western countries. The antenna consisted of a 256 meter mast, insulated to the ground and equipped with twelve guy wires extending from the top.
During the day, the transmitter broadcast programs in German, provided by RIAS (Berlin’s American Sector Radio). During the Voice of America programs were broadcast in the languages of the Warsaw Pact countries.
From 1964 only VOA broadcasts used the transmitter, RIAS no longer used it.
The frequency of 173 kHz was not allocated to Germany. It must be remembered that during the Copenhagen Conference, the German states were not among the signatory countries. It was therefore a frequency used without any legal basis.
Faced with the importance that the station was gaining on the other side of the wall, in 1972, the Soviet Union began to install, on the same frequency, several powerful transmitters, along the western border (Minsk, Kaliningrad, Lvov) .
In 1973, the VOA transmitter was turned off, because listening in Eastern countries had become impossible. The installation was donated to the German Federal Post. It was a poisoned chalice!
The Bundespost wanted to use the installation to broadcast the DLF program on 209 kHz. The new frequency coordination of the Geneva plan granted 209 kHz with 500 kW in the Munich area.
By resuming operation of the station, the Bundespost quickly became disenchanted: The transmitter operated with American current at 60 Hz. This made it impossible to connect the transmitter to the 50 Hz electrical network: it was obligatory to produce the current by means of groups that consumed 4,500 liters of diesel per day.
In the absence of another solution, the post office nevertheless resumed distribution from July 4, 1979.
A new problem was that the transmitter could only be used during the day from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Nighttime operation was not possible, as the Kiev transmitter would have been disrupted on the same frequency. To be able to use it at night, the station has to build a new directional antenna.
The Bundespost also notes that the transmitter was running out of steam and that modernization was impossible.
At this time, the project for the new Munich Franz-Josef-Strauss airport was released, which was to be located 4 kilometers away. It became impossible to build a new antenna.
This will be the definitive end of the Erching site. In 1987, a long-wave transmitter center was built in Aholming Deggendorf in Lower Bavaria to permanently replace the VOA transmitter center in Erching.
The transmitter in Erching was finally switched off on December 31, 1988 and ownership was handed over to the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The system may have been used for a time as a “numbers station” to communicate with agents overseas. It was then abandoned and left to vandals.

Radio Magazine FB group (2024-01-25)