Aims. In March 2008, the APEX facility instrument was installed on the telescope at the site of Lliano Chajnantor in northern Chile. The main objective of the paper is to introduce the new instrument to the radio astronomical community. It describes the hardware configuration and presents some initial results from the on-sky commissioning. Methods. The heterodyne instrument covers frequencies between 211 GHz and 1390 GHz divided into four bands. The first three bands are sideband-separating mixers operating in a single sideband mode and based on superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) tunnel junctions. The fourth band is a hot-electron bolometer, waveguide balanced mixer. All bands are integrated in a closedcycle temperature-stabilized cryostat and are cooled to 4 K. Results. We present results from noise temperature, sideband separation ratios, beam, and stability measurements performed on the telescope as a part of the receiver technical commissioning. Examples of broad extragalactic lines are also included.

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