About Radio HBW

Radio HBW

Radio HBW is a non-commercial local radio station in Aschersleben, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, broadcasting from its Funkhaus in the town since 28 October 2000. The abbreviation HBW stands for Harz-Börde-Welle, the wave between the Harz mountains and the Börde plain, and the station's coverage area spans the western Salzlandkreis, the eastern Harz district and the northern Mansfeld-Südharz district in southwestern Saxony-Anhalt. Operated by the association Lokalrundfunk Harz-Börde-Welle e. V., founded on 24 October 1997, it is a citizen radio in the classic sense: around 120 to 150 members can participate in the station and in shaping the programme simply by joining the association, and the media authority provides the transmission technology, so that users incur no costs for broadcasting.

Overview

Radio HBW broadcasts on FM 92.50 MHz from Aschersleben, on cable at 88.60 MHz in Aschersleben, 91.15 MHz in Hettstedt, 92.50 MHz in Egeln and 96.00 MHz in Staßfurt, via DAB+, satellite and livestream. The official coverage area covers the western part of the Salzland district and the eastern part of the Harz district, with reception also possible in the northern Mansfeld-Südharz district; under good weather conditions, overreach can carry the signal as far as Magdeburg and Halle (Saale), and even into Lower Saxony.

The programme is built around three daily magazine shows: the Frühkurier from 7 to 8 am, the Mittagskurier from noon to 1 pm and the Abendkurier from 5 to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday, with the morning and midday editions also on Sundays. Between the magazines, music stretches with local event tips, Heimatberichte, reports on the region's heritage, and birthday greetings fill the day. The evenings belong to genre music shows, some moderated and some not, rounded off by the listener charts. World news aired on the hour until 2026, weather and traffic on the half hour, with local news part of the schedule until 2025.

History

The association behind the station was registered on 24 October 1997, in the wave of citizen media initiatives that followed German reunification in the eastern states. Saxony-Anhalt's media law provided for non-commercial local broadcasting, and the association spent three years preparing before Radio HBW went on air on 28 October 2000 from its Funkhaus in Aschersleben.

The timing placed Radio HBW in the second generation of East German citizen media. The first open channels had appeared in the early nineties, often as television-first projects; by the late nineties, the model had matured into associations that planned proper radio stations with studios, schedules and training for volunteers. Aschersleben, one of Saxony-Anhalt's oldest towns with a history reaching back over 1,200 years, gave the new station a reporting territory rich in material: medieval town walls, the mining heritage of the region, the transition from GDR industry to the market economy, all of it within the signal's reach.

The station broadcasts under a public mandate, on the basis of its supporting association, a structure that makes participation as simple as joining any other club. The Landesmedienanstalt equips the association with the necessary transmission technology, and the some 120 to 150 members form the backbone of the operation, producing the programme as volunteers. The managing director is Kay Mähnert. Over more than two decades, the station has become a fixture of the region's media landscape, documenting the towns and villages between the Harz and the Börde with a persistence that no commercial station could afford.

Programming

The three Kurier magazines structure the day: Frühkurier, Mittagskurier and Abendkurier bring the region's news and topics to the listeners in the morning, at midday and in the evening. The music stretches between them are classic citizen radio: presenters' choice music interspersed with event tips for the region, Heimatberichte researched in the station's own archive work, and the birthday greetings that remain one of the most beloved formats of local radio.

The evenings are given over to specialist music programmes across the genres, some presented, some running as curated music flows, with the listener charts as the interactive highlight. A distinctive feature is the station's Regionalportal on its website: an extensive collection of regional reports, prepared over years of work in the Funkhaus, based on thorough research in the archives, libraries and chronicles of the region. The reports are organized in categories covering personalities, sights, leisure opportunities and the history of the region, including the origins of street names in Aschersleben, Staßfurt and Quedlinburg, a unique audio archive of local heritage.

The Heimatberichte represent the station's most distinctive contribution to the region's cultural life. Where commercial stations report the news of the day, Radio HBW's volunteers have spent years researching the stories behind the streets, the buildings and the people of the Harz-Börde region, working through archives, libraries and local chronicles to produce audio features that preserve knowledge which might otherwise be lost. The street-name histories of Aschersleben, Staßfurt and Quedlinburg are a case in point: every street name encodes a piece of local history, and the station's features decode them for the listeners, turning a walk through the old town into a journey through the centuries.

Organization and Ownership

The owner is the association Lokalrundfunk Harz-Börde-Welle e. V., with Kay Mähnert as managing director. The station operates under a public mandate on the basis of the association, which has existed since 24 October 1997 and counts around 120 to 150 members. The structure is deliberately open: any interested citizen can participate in the radio and in shaping the programme through membership, comparable to joining any other association.

The Medienanstalt Sachsen-Anhalt provides the association with the required transmission technology, and there are no operating costs for the users, a model that keeps the station independent of advertising and commercial pressure. The volunteers produce the programme in the Funkhaus in Aschersleben, making Radio HBW a genuinely participatory medium for the region between the Harz and the Börde.

Digital Presence

The livestream on radio-hbw.de carries the programme to listeners beyond the FM and cable coverage, including the overreach areas and former residents who want to stay connected to the region. The website hosts the Regionalportal, the station's extensive collection of regional heritage reports, which extends the broadcast work into a permanent digital archive of the region's history, personalities and street names.

Radio HBW is also fed as audio on several television stations during their off-air times, for example on the Offener Kanal Wernigerode, and some cable operators distribute the signal as audio on their information channels, as in Benndorf. Combined with DAB+ and satellite distribution, the station reaches its listeners on every available path, from the 92.5 MHz FM signal in Aschersleben to the stream on the internet, keeping the Harz-Börde-Welle audible across southwestern Saxony-Anhalt and beyond.

The multi-platform presence is a quiet technical achievement for a volunteer-run station: FM for the local core, cable for the towns, DAB+ and satellite for the region, the stream for the world, and the television off-air feeds for the night hours. It means that the Kurier magazines, the Heimatberichte and the evening genre shows are available wherever the region's listeners happen to be, a fitting distribution for a station whose mission is to keep the Harz-Börde region talking to itself, on air since the autumn of 2000.