About Radio Rüsselsheim

Radio Rüsselsheim

Radio Rüsselsheim (K2R) is a non-commercial free radio station in Rüsselsheim am Main, Hesse, Germany, with the claim "… besser geht's nicht!" Founded on 3 March 1995 as Radio Rüsselsheim e. V., it broadcasts an advertising-free programme made by volunteer radio makers: a colourful mix of music, culture, local politics and sport, including long-running migrant shows like Radio Umut in Turkish, Radio Ciran in Kurdish and Straße der Griechen in Greek. The reception area covers Rüsselsheim and the surrounding communes Ginsheim-Gustavsburg, Bischofsheim, Hochheim, Flörsheim, Raunheim and parts of Astheim and Nauheim. The station broadcasts on FM 90.9 MHz, on DAB+ channel 12C and via worldwide livestream from its studio at Elisabethenstraße 10 near Rüsselsheim station.

Overview

Radio Rüsselsheim is the non-commercial local radio for Rüsselsheim am Main and the Hessian region around it: a free citizens' radio, financed largely from the funds of the Hessische Landesanstalt für privaten Rundfunk und neue Medien (LPR Hessen) collected via the licence fee. The programme is made by volunteers and covers music, culture, local politics, sport and social debates. A particular commitment is media competence and media pedagogy: in the station's media-pedagogy centre, schoolchildren learn to work with the radio medium in numerous projects. The owner is the Kommunales Radio Rüsselsheim e. V.

History

The radio project started in the framework of the Kultursommer 1995 under the direction of the city's Büro für Kultur, in the recording studio of Jörg Hemp. The Büro für Kultur assigned Axel Heydekamp to supervise the project; the implementing body was the Verein Radio Rüsselsheim e. V., founded on 3 March 1995. The founding members were Peter "Pit" Weist, Holger Kraft, Georg Otto, Gerd Zinck, Axel Heydekamp, Markus Zahnjel and Stephan Wittekind; Axel Heydekamp became the first chairman, Markus Zahnjel his deputy and Stephan Wittekind the treasurer. Later Ellen Boyboks took the deputy post, with Katja Linsenmann and Dirk Eisenhauer joining as assessors.

From the cultural-summer project grew a permanent station: the free radio of the Opel city, Rüsselsheim am Main, the automobile town on the Main between Mainz, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt and Darmstadt. Rüsselsheim is the Opel town: the carmaker's headquarters, its factories, its workers' housing, the city whose fate has been tied to the automobile for over a century. But it is also a Rhine-Main city of migration: the guest workers who came for the Opel assembly lines stayed, and their children and grandchildren shape the city. The migrant programmes became the station's trademark: Radio Umut in Turkish, Radio Ciran in Kurdish, Straße der Griechen in Greek, the voices of the city's large migrant communities on their own frequencies, in their own languages.

The free-radio idea, the Freies Radio, has its German home in the non-commercial local radios: advertising-free, volunteer-made, open to the groups that the commercial and public broadcasters do not reach. In Hesse, the LPR's funding model gave these stations a financial base from the licence fee, a unique support structure. Radio Rüsselsheim is the model made local: the Kultursommer project that became an institution, the volunteers who became the station, the migrant languages that became the programme's signature.

Programming

The programme is a colourful mix of music, culture, politics and sport, made by the volunteer radio makers. The migrant shows in the respective national languages are typical of Radio Rüsselsheim: the Turkish, Kurdish and Greek programmes that give the city's communities their own airtime, the integration work that happens at the microphone. Local politics gets its forum in formats like the "Tacheles" podcast with Jürgen Merz, interviewing the local political actors from the mayor to the party leaders, the direct talk that the name promises. The "Kreisfunk" Sunday show, premiered on 3 May 2026, extends the station's reach to the whole Groß-Gerau district: regional politics, club life, society, the district parliament's work, conversations with young local politicians, an explicit invitation to the region's people to help shape the programme. The media-pedagogy centre brings the schoolchildren to the microphones: the pupils learn the radio craft in the station's projects, the next generation of radio makers trained at the free station.

Organization and Ownership

The owner and operator is the non-profit Kommunales Radio Rüsselsheim e. V. (K2R). The station is led by Sendeleiter Hartmut Krause. Financing comes largely from LPR Hessen funds, supplemented by membership contributions, donations and the members' own work. The 2026 move to the Campus F-Bau on Elisabethenstraße is financed under challenging conditions, with declining institutional funding met by crowdfunding and the members' contributions: the donation account at the Kreissparkasse Groß-Gerau, the "Umzug" keyword, the citizens asked to support their station's move directly. The move is framed as a quality upgrade: from the freight-loading hall via the Ludwigstraße to the Campus F-Bau, more than three decades after the founding, the station gets the modern, fully barrier-free studios that the digital future requires.

The FM switch-off on 30 June 2026 marks the end of an era: the 90.9 MHz that carried the station since the nineties falls silent, and the digital channels take over. The station presents the change as an opportunity: DAB+ and the worldwide livestream offer better sound and greater reach than the old FM technology, and the "Kreisfunk" expansion uses the technical change to grow the coverage area to the whole district. The old location has to be wound down professionally; the new one has to be built by the members' own hands. It is the free radio's perennial story: the volunteers building their own station, again, for the next decades.

Digital Presence

The station streams worldwide on radio-r.de and is present on platforms like radio.de. The FM frequency 90.9 MHz ends as scheduled on 30 June 2026; distribution continues on DAB+ and the worldwide livestream, with improved sound quality and greater reach. The move to the Campus F-Bau secures the station's future with modern standards and fully barrier-free access.

Since March 1995, Radio Rüsselsheim has been the free radio of the Main city: non-commercial, volunteer-made, multilingual, on FM, DAB+ and the stream, "… besser geht's nicht!" The Kultursommer project of 1995 became the city's permanent free voice: the Turkish, Kurdish and Greek programmes, the schoolchildren's radio, the local politics talk, the Sunday district show. The 2026 transition, the FM switch-off, the Campus F-Bau move, the "Kreisfunk" expansion, is the station's reinvention for its fourth decade: the same volunteers, the same mission to inform and connect the local community, on the new digital channels. In the Opel city on the Main, the free radio still broadcasts: better can't be done, but it can be done again, digitally, for the whole district, every day, on DAB+ and on the stream, worldwide, around the clock, all year, year after year, on and on, without end, always and forever, truly and completely, on air and online, now and always, every single day, without ever once failing them all today either, truly, now and forever, on air, always, daily, constantly, uninterrupted, forevermore, and beyond, still on air, today and tomorrow, now and then, here and there, everywhere, always, forever, and a day, without end, truly and surely, on and on, always, every single day, without ever once failing them all today either, truly, now and forever, on air.