Kystradiostationen OXA - Naval Museum of Wireless Telegraphy

1439 København, Denmark

The OXA museum is situated in its original, decorated wooden villa built for the OXA in 1908. Much later, in the late 20th century it was used for other purposes and around year 2000, it was decided the scrap the old building, despite that it was protected. However, a group was formed (Foreningen til bevarelse af Danmarks ældste Radiostation; the Association for the Preservation of the oldest Radio Station in Denmark).
Subsequently, in 2001 the OXA house was neatly cut in two, trucked 800 meters from its original site down the same Danish Military Naval Yard to a new position, next the landmark, the Naval Mast Crane from the middle 18th century.

There, the old OXA building was seamless rejoined and could be inaugurated as the OXA Radiomuseum in 2003. It has thereafter been run and operated by its club of about 100 enthusiasts under the chairmanship of Geert Willendrup. In parallel, Geert and his friends had been allowed access to old wireless equipment that for several years had been stored away in the old Navy´s arrest, under heaps of dust.
These objects had been placed there after being discarded by the Navy but had miraculously been saved by the naval model carpenter who saw all the old beautiful mahogany cabinets and brass bindings and felt it would be a pity to throw them away. Another member by mere chance, in an antiquarian book shop, had found a handwritten book of the first experiments and equipment. This book, written by L.E. Larsen, the original OXA telegrapher, also described a range of coherers being developed – coherers that still exist, thanks to being saved in the arrest.

After Marconi´s invention of wireless telegraphy, the Danish Navy had gained some interest about the wireless and bought one assembly as early as 1899 but after some experiments the Navy concluded that such equipment was useless. In 1902, wireless equipment, manufactured by Allgemeine Elektrische Gesellschaft (AEG) by pioneers Slaby and Arco had been installed into lightships on the Jutland Atlantic coast it became obvious that such stations could save lives. A likewise successful communication test between two warships sailing away from each other, made the Admiralty to revise their first decision and they subsequently strongly promoted wireless communication.
The OXA went on the air, using a 56 meter mast from an old wooden warship and the strong spark transmissions from the OXA dominated the ether in southern Scandinavia, useful for ships and navy, but sometimes to the despair of others, including the early amateurs, and later, broadcast listeners when they appeared in the 1920s.
 

Collection:

It contains most of the unique equipment described above, some of which, in particular German, had been thought to be lost forever.
It is a unique collection of essential early wireless equipment,
coherers and decoherers and relays of every kind,
Slaby/Arco spark coils and receivers,
antenna coils and other German items before and after Telefunken was formed in 1903,
some high level Marconi equipment, like the Multiple Tuner, Magnetic Detector, a Combined Marconi Receiver with built in Magnetic Detector!, Marconi Crystal Receiver, Marconi Direction Finder,
a Valdemar Poulsen Tuner and a Poulsen Bank of 6 Crystal Detectors, Wireless Specialty Apparatus IP-76 used in WWI,
several pieces from the legendary pioneer Skovmand & Pedersen company,
WWII spy equipment, communication receivers etc.
In a side room a rotating Marconi spark transmitter from 1915 is located, to keep the noise and the ozone out from the main room. It that is occasionally started up (but not put on the air).
And in the midst, Geert who has all the stories of this miraculously saved time capsule.
Written by Anders Widell, Lund, Sweden

Danmarks første kystradiostation

Dette bevaringsværdige hus ligger på det fredede Nyholm overfor Planbygningen og Mastekranen, og indeholder Danmarks første Kystradiostation.

Huset er fra 1908, og lå oprindeligt på Frederiksholm, men blev i 2003  flyttet til sin nuværende position. Huset indeholder artefakter fra radiotelegrafiens barndom helt tilbage fra 1880’erne.

Huset drives idag af “Foreningen til bevarelse af Danmarks ældste Radiostation”, men er åbent for offentligheden.
Her kan du få historien om de europæiske videnskabsmænd, der ved opdagelser og samarbejde, udgjorde radiotelegrafiens barndom, og her kan du se og høre historien om en 100 årig æra.

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