Near my home-QTH is one of the tallest hills in the area, the so called "Haberg" which is 414 meters high. On its top sits a transmitting tower that every local knows but its purpose is widely unknown. Moreover, googling also reveals not much about it. In this article I try to uncover the purpose of the location and give some interesting facts. I first visited the tower about 10 years ago but I didn't took photos at that time, but I returned in 2016 and 2019 to take some pictures. The station is located in a forest which is only accessible on foot since there is a wildlife protection area. Even if the barriers are open, do not drive in there!

The Haberg is also listed as SOTA hill: OE/NO-186 .

Getting there

Here you can see the route to the station. Park your car in the village (Wischathal, Lower Austria) or next to the water reservoir. Keep in mind that at the water reservoir is only space for one car.

Services

The following systems are installed on the tower:

• FM radio repeater: "88.6 der Musiksender" transmits on 104.7MHz, vertical polarisation, RDS-ID: A6vC47 (HOLLABRUNN 2) with 158,5W ERP (transmitter output power is 81,3W). The audio is delivered via reception of "S POELTEN 2" on 100,8MHz. Station is operating since 2018 and replaced the transmitter in the town "Hollabrunn". Reception is done via a ground plane antenna on the south-west side. Furthermore, the transmitting antenna is a vertical dipole on the north corner. See the RTR approval .
• BOS base station: Austrian authorities use TETRA for radio communication. The three long antennas on the top (collinear antennas) are used for this service. Moreover it seems that TETRA also uses a satellite link because the brown offset parabolic antenna can be seen on other TETRA base stations too.
• DATATRAK: Was an old position finding system from Siemens. It used an uplink on UHF and longwave for position finding as far as I know. In 2016 I found a sticker on a box outside of the station saying "Datatrak base station". There are two dipole arrays consisting of three vertical dipoles each on the very top which could be used for direction finding on UHF. Unfortunately, I am not sure if they were used for Datatrak.

Das UHF-Datenfunknetz ist ein ideales Instrument zur optimalen Datenübertragung: Das Zeitschlitzverfahren stellt einen andauernden Kontakt zwischen Fahrzeug und Zentrale her. Informationen über Position, Bewegung und Status der Fahrzeuge sowie Alarme werden im Moment des Geschehens übertragen. Das System überprüft und sichert diese Daten, die sofort verfügbar sind und nicht verloren gehen können. Damit können Sie so schnell wie Polizei, Rettung und Feuerwehr reagieren. Der Einsatz des UHF-Datenfunks, kombiniert mit der Langwellenortung, macht das Datatrak-System einzigartig: präzise, schnell und sicher in der Übertragung. Deshalb ist das Datatrak-System auch patentrechtlich geschützt.
- WayBackMachine datatrak.at

• Mobile Phone service: A1 (Telekom Austria) uses the site as mobile phone base station for GSM, UMTS, LTE with a power of 100-120W.

• Unknown 1: Two vertical corner antennas are mounted on the lower platform. These antennas are often used by water or gas companies.
• Unknown 2: On the South corner of the upper platform a sector antenna is mounted.
• Unknown 3: On the West corner of the upper platform a ground plane antenna with a unusual short radiator (compared to the radials) is mounted.
• Unknown 4: South-East to North radio link on lower platform
• Unknown 5: South to West radio link on two positions.
• Unknown 6: Multiple small microwave links on the very top. Might be used by mobile phone providers.
• Unknown 7: Unknown device that looks like a daylight sensor.
• Unknown 8: Yellow radio link dishes, North to West, might be used by water and gas companies.

If you can help to identify the unknown systems please write me an E-Mail.

More photos

Click on the pictures to see the description.

First test

On Sunday the 31. January I went up to the Haberg-station with my 2m / 70cm handheld radio. During my hiking I had contact to a station in Grund which reported S9+30 on 2m when I reached a free area (no trees) at the top of the hill. TX power was 5W into an ~40cm whip antenna. Unfortunately, as soon as I entered the woods next to the transmitting tower my receiver got deaf. The schielding of the trees is extreme on these frequencies. One would need a portable tower that reaches over the trees to work 2m / 70cm from the official top of the hill. The free area I mentioned before is 10m below the top ( Google Maps ). Moreover, some antennas on the tower changed again. Now it seems like the radio station "88,6" gets its signal via a Yagi-antenna pointing towards Ernstbrunn (Oberleiserberge). Maybe I will write more about this in the future.

Weinviertel-Runde

On Saturday the 6th February we hat our monthly CB event in my area, so I decided to get on air from the Haberg. Since driving to the top is not possible, I packed a 12Ah battery, the PNI Escort radio and my 10m fishing pole antenna in / on my backpack and hiked up there. The weather was very wet and a little bit cold but that was no a problem for an ex WchSi solder XD. Nevertheless, I got many good reports and heard some new stations from the Waldviertel. You can find my logbook and photos in the CB-Radio Austria Forum .