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DDR RFT RX OWVL Cold War BND CIA
DDR all-transistor radio
Sternchen (little star) was the first civil radio
made in the former DDR
(East-Germany), that was fully built with transistors. It was developed in
1958, and was manufactured from 1959 onwards by VEB Sternradio in Sonneberg
(DDR), and from 1961 onwards also in Berlin. It is suitable for the
reception of the Medium Wave band (MW) from 510 to 1620 kHz, and is powered
by a 9V battery.
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The radio measures 14.5 x 9 x 3.5 cm, weights 320 grams, and was available in
a wide variety of colours.
It is housed in a plastic enclosure with a metal
grid over the internal speaker. At the right side it has a 3.5 mm socket
for the connection of an earpiece,
which was available separately.
It was the first radio in the DDR that was fully transistorised and that was
powered by a (then) relatively new 9V block battery. Sternchen soon became a popular consumer item in the former
Eastern Block state. It was often carried
around in a leader carrying case
with velvet lining.
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Sternchen was not only used by consumers, but also by
foreign intelligence services, operating under cover in the DDR.
In many cases, regular DDR citizens were recruited as an agent
for a Western intelligence service, such as the
West-German BND,
the British MI6
or the American CIA.
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For the reception of instructions from the free West, the agent needed an
unobtrusive radio, and Sternchen was a good candidate for this.
The coded instructions were
sent by a Numbers Station
operating in the Short Wave band (SW), for which
Sternchen was unsuitable.
Posession of an SW radio was considered illegal in the DDR.
To overcome this restriction, Western agencies started distributing so-called
BND converters, that converted Sternchen into
a short-wave radio that could receive two crystal-based channels on which
the BND transmitted its coded messages.
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The BND Converter
was actually a mixer, or down converter,
that produced an output signal at 1500 kHz in the MW-band. The posession of
a BND Converter
was extremely dangerous in the DDR, and it had to be
concealed properly in order to hide it from the authorities during an
unexpected search. Furthermore, the device's crystal oscillator produced
such a strong signal, that it could easily be picked up outside the building,
making it liable to radio direction finding.
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Sternchen radios were available in plastic cases with the following colours [2]:
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- White
- Yellow
- Blue
- Red
- Orange
- Violet
- Green
- Turcoise
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Getting access to the interior of the Sternchen is pretty straightforward
and does not require any tools. The rear panel of the plastic body can be
separated by inserting a small coin or a finger nail in the small gap at
the top, and pulling-off the panel, after which the interior will be visible.
The interior of the radio resembles a portable Japanese radio from the 1960s
and 70s, and consists of a pertinax printed circuit board (PCB) with the
electronic components. Clearly visible are the
ferrite antenna, the
tuning capacitor,
the loudspeaker, and various types of transistors.
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The image below shows the original circuit diagram of the first Sternchen
that was released in 1959. Its model number is 57/69 TT. Click the image
to view it in a better resolution. The radio was built with parts from
Eastern Block manufacturers, but also with Western parts, such as the
OC44 and OC45 transistors that were sourced from Valvo (later: Philips)
in West-Germany [3].
In a later variant, a diode was added to the circuit in order to improve
the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) of the radio. Furthermore the transistor
types were changed a number of times, as and when newer and better versions
became available. The improved version is shown below [3].
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Wednesday 15 March 2017. Last changed: Friday, 09 October 2020 - 15:55 CET.
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