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Breitsol Radio Station
Wideband Germany
Looking for more information from military/civilian personnel assigned to or associated with the U.S. Army in Germany from 1945 to 1989. If you have any stories or thoughts on the subject, please contact me.

102nd Sig Bn
Miguel "Mickey" Felix

 68th Sig Bn

261st Sig Co


 
Breitsol Radio Station
 
102nd Signal Battalion
 
(Email from Miguel Felix, 102nd Sig Bn, 1959 to 1961)

Miguel Felix with "Rube", site watch dog
I understand that Breitsol used to be a German hunting lodge before WW2 and a German radar station during WW2. The concrete blocks that anchored  the tower legs were made into flowers beds.

The Air Force had a similar site at Breitsol but the buildings were prefab. The 3rd Infantry Division, Audie Murphy's old outfit, had mobile radio equipment set up in trucks and in the basement. They would rotate about every 3 months as I think it was a reward as it was great duty to be stationed at Breitsol.

There was also a German microwave relay station operated by a German couple. The wife would sew patches and stripes and do other sewing task for us. We would give her coffee and cigarettes as payment.

We had a German cook who we would pick up every weekday at a nearby village. She would cook lunch and dinner for us. Her name was Anna Haas and she had a great sense of humor. She had never seen a Mexican and she thought that I was half black and half white. We had a full size kitchen and dinning room but no mess hall. She was a great cook, I gained weight the 2 years I was stationed there. By the way the cook did not speak English but we had Sp 5 Burger who spoke German fluently as his parents were born in Germany.

We would go in Würzburg once a week for supplies and we would pick up 3 movies at the rail road station. We shared the movies with the Air Force. We had a cinema scope lens and a regular one and a wide screen in the living room. We would set the projector in the kitchen and shoot into the living room.

Regards Miguel  

Station sign makes it clear - in 1959, the Breitsol site is a USAREUR Multi-Channel Radio Station and is operated by Company A, 102nd Signal Battalion, 4th Signal Group.

102d Sig Bn - 1959-61
Breitsol

 

1. Breitsol det house and radio towers (KB)
2. Bird's eye view of the site (KB)

3. Felix with Lorenz equipment (KB)

4. Members of the 3rd Inf Div radio relay det (KB)
5. Anna Haas - Miguel took this picture with her wearing Army boots and holding two bottles of brandy

6. Old Glory flies over Breitsol site (KB)

7. Marktheidenfeld (KB)
   
68th Signal Battalion
 
(Source: STARS & STRIPES, Nov 29, 1969)
The Breitsol Communications Station is one of six radio relay sites operated by Company A in the Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, and Nuernberg area.

10 members of Co A are stationed at the Breitsol site.

The site serves as a relay site for both microwave and troposcatter communications and operates 24x7.
261st Signal Co, 102nd Sig Bn
 
(Source: Email from John D. Mercier, 261st Sig Co, 1978-80)
I was the station Chief at Breitsol () from November 1978 through March 1980 when I was promoted out of the best job I ever had in the Army. I then went from Operations NCOIC at the 261st Sig Co in Hanau and to the OPS NCOIC of the 102 Sig Bn in Frankfurt. The fond memories I have of Breitsol will last a lifetime especially the wedding reception held for my wife and myself at the site by the site personal and local German friends on 30 July 1983. Tilly and Marianne, the cooks, did all the food and made us a wedding cake. The site personal acted as waiters and a German friend as Bartender. This was their wedding gift to us.

On a business trip in May 2007 I visited the site. It is no longer in operation. The old barracks and Mess Hall buildings were sold to a German gentleman who uses it as a hunting lodge. He invited me in to look around and one of the technicians from the Bundespost site came over and we all talked about when the site was under US Army control. They both knew locals who had worked at the site such as Tilly, Marianne, and Potzel. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to look them up, but plan to on my next trip to Germany.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Breitsol Links, 1970-72
 
My memory has faded some but as I remember the REL 2600 tropo to Bocksberg was still at the site in 1978 but had been deactivated and was reinstalled sometime in 1979. I believe the path thru Bocksberg to Berlin was rerouted with some of the first DEB (Digital European Backbone) systems

The AN/GRC-66 systems to Nuernberg and Frankfurt had been replaced with Motorola MR-300 Radios and FDM Multiplex. The shot to Feldberg was still the Siemens FM 120 LOS system.

There was no AF contingent in 1978 or after.

We did not have a shot to Schwanberg.

We did have a DEB radio system installed for the shot into Frankfurt but it was not cut over until around 1981 or after

We had a leg of the AFN TV System running thru the site. This system provided TV to 43 Military Communities throughout Southern Germany.

There also was a Tactical Interface connection that was used during some exercises. The tactical unit would set up outside the Ops building and connect their circuits to our DCS system and we could connect them to any other fixed site in the command.

The site consisted of the Operations Building and generator buildings shown in one of my pictures and two barracks buildings. All communications equipment was in the lower floor of the operations building. We had three 100KW generators which provided power in case of a commercial outage. The system would start and come on line automatically when commercial power went out.

There was a water system which had a wellhead about 1500 meters down the side of the hill. Water was pumped up to a treatment facility in the basement of the new Barracks and Mess hall building. This supplied all drinking and cooking water for the site. There was a additional old well system on the site proper but it was Non Potable. This water was used for fire points heating and irrigation.

The barracks consisted of the older building in the picture (Built in the 30s )and the newer building built sometime in the mid 70's. We had around 20 to 25 personal assigned with about 15 living on site. We had two German cooks Tillly and Marianne, , two Local Technicians Potzel and Rudy and a generator tech Wolfgang who also did all the gardening (the troops loved him). We were very involved with local harpings in Markhidenfeld and had many local national friends. The site was part of the Aschaffenburg military community (18 miles away) and received support from them. The Mess hall was a Non-appropriated mess with those living on site buying the food thru the class 1 facility in Aschaffenburg. We had a SPC 5 mess sergeant who did all the paper work but only cooked if both local cooks were out (thank God that didn't happen very often).

We were part of the 261st Signal company in Hanau and 102nd Sig Bn Frankfurt. LTC Otto Guenther was the Commander of the 102nd at the time (he is now a retired 3 Star).

>>From 1967 to 1970 I was at Lohnsfeld and Kaiserslautern M/W sites.

Lohnsfeld was about 4 miles from Sembach AB and the HF receiver facility for Pirmasens. I had the M/W portion. We had Siemens PPM-24 Radio's which were then replaced by a temporary AN/GRS-66 van mounted system while they installed the Motorola MR-300 system. The rest of the site consisted of HF Radio Receiver Systems.

Kaiserslautern DCS was a terminal site. It was located on the hill behind Panzer Karserne, and provided Communications for the Kaiserslautern Military Community (which was Army controlled at that time), We had a single space diversity M/W shot to Donnersberg using Siemens PPM-24 (Pulse Position Modulation) system which was replaced with Motorola MR-300 radios and MX-106 Multiplex during my time there.

Breitsol Radio Station

 

1. Owner and BP tech (KB)
2. Mess hall and barracks (KB)

3. Ops and generator bldg (KB)

 
(Source: The Aschaffenburg Forum, April 10, 1985)
Breitsol beams signals to community

By Ted Ramsaur

Dozens of remote radio sites all over Europe ensure that a phone call gets from Bremerhaven to Vicenza and that a community receives its AFN television signal. One such site is Breitsol.

Breitsol is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation owned by 5th Signal Command's 261st Signal Company. Part of Aschaffenburg Military Community (MILCOM), the site is a mini-community made up of a dining facility, single soldiers quarters, recreation room with weight equipment and a tiny PX.

Breitsol's mission is to receive radio signals, to amplify them and to send them to different directions, says site chief SSgt. Larry Dewitt. Recently, Dewitt received a letter from 5th Signal's commanding general and an Impact Army Commendation Medal for his contribution during Breitsol's annual general inspection. The Defense Communication Agency's two-week evaluation found no deficiencies in maintenance or technical control. Breitsol has been nominated for "medium site of the year" worldwide, according to Dewitt.

To help with the job of 24-hour communications, equipment at the site comes in "twos" and "threes." If one piece goes down, a replacement takes over.

Microwave radio equipment, dish antennas and associated paraphernalia are a techno-world removed from field phones and PRC-77s most soldiers know. "Our equipment can receive one type of radio signal, convert it into a microwave signal, strengthen it and send the new signal to a distant station," says Dewitt. "Many people think telephone communications is all wire, but actually phone conversations are converted to microwave signals and sent long distances in the air."
The soldiers who keep the airways humming need to have food and SEC Larry Robinson, dining facility manager, makes sure that shift workers and others can cat at odd hours of the day or night.

"We're more like a snack bar than a dining facility," says Robinson. "Kind of like mama takin' care of 'em."

"We're like a family" is the often-heard description of life at Breitsol. The family living aspect and take-care-of-yourself attitude is seen in other ways. Dewitt says soldiers help cover each other's jobs to allow them to enroll in and attend college classes. The grounds are immaculately groomed, with garden and flower pots laid out waiting to be planted. Dewitt's wife, Roswitha, gives aerobics classes three times a week for the wives and female soldiers.

Getting involved with the German community is the norm for Breitsol, where most learn to speak some German. At one time, says Dewitt, they had their own soccer team that played local teams all over the area. Now they have individual members on a German track team, Hallen-Handball team and soccer team, he adds. 

"When Marktheidenfeld has their fest we have a table up front next to the band," says Dewitt. He also says that site members are continually invited to local events.

Breitsol is called a "remote site," but the "family" there has proven themselves anything but remote.