Schatzalp

Schatzalp

Historic radios

'Historic' radios at the Schatzalp

In the rooms at the Schatzalp, you will find ‘historic’ radios, and there is a story behind them too!

More than 50 years ago, the Schatzalp Hotel wanted to provide its guests with radio reception in their rooms. At that time, however, operating a radio was not easy, and reception of stations in mountainous regions was a matter of luck. In 1931, however, telephone broadcasting was introduced in Switzerland. This made it possible to receive six stations in acceptable quality via the telephone line.

Image: NZZ Folio

The devices suitable for telephone broadcasting were quite simple in design and easy to operate:

– On/off switch
– Volume control
– 6 buttons for the 6 stations

Three ‘generations’ of these devices are still in use on the Schatzalp. The oldest still run on radio tubes, the others on transistors. Our showpiece is the Biennophone Minitel 43 NB pictured here, which was introduced by the Swiss PTT in 1981 to mark the 50th anniversary of telephone broadcasting. It has since become one of the classics and is often mentioned in articles on the history of radio.

Unfortunately, telephone broadcasting was discontinued in 1998 with the introduction of ISDN, as the harmonics of ISDN interfered with the telephone broadcasting signals. We would have had to replace all our devices with new FM radios. Fortunately, we found a company that manufactured a device that converted the FM signals from six stations into the conventional telephone broadcast signal. This means that the historical devices can still be used today.

Digital radio (DAB) has been introduced in Switzerland since the end of 2008 and is set to replace FM in the long term. Our aim was therefore to be able to continue using our historic radios in the DAB and Internet age. With the discontinuation of FM broadcasting by SRG radios at the end of 2024, the switch to DAB+ or other digital reception channels was ultimately unavoidable.

Biennophone Minitel 43 NB

SOON

open again

The cable car and the panorama restaurant will open on May 24th, and the hotel from June 7th to October 26th