The "Volksempfänger" was designed to be produced as cheaply as possible; as a consequence they generally lacked shortwave bands and did not follow the practice, common at the time, of marking the approximate dial positions of major European stations on its tuning scale. Only German and (after the 1938 annexation) Austrian stations were marked, and cheaper models only listed arbitrary numbers. Sensitivity to receive weak signals was limited, to reduce production costs further; so long as the set could receive "Deutschlandsender" and the local "Reichssender", it was considered sensitive enough. However, foreign stations could be received after dark with an external antenna, particularly as stations such as the BBC European service increased their transmission power during the course of the war.