"Arthur", The world's first parabolic satellite communications antenna

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station is a large telecommunications site located on Goonhilly Downs near Helston on the Lizard peninsula of the English county of Cornwall. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1272x1684, 256 KB)Arthur, the oldest dish at Goonhilly Earth Station. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1272x1684, 256 KB)Arthur, the oldest dish at Goonhilly Earth Station. ... Goonhilly Downs is an area of the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, just south of Helston and the Naval Air Station at Culdrose. ... Location within the British Isles Helston (Cornish: Hellys or Henlys) is a small town in Cornwall, UK, at the northern end of the Lizard Peninsula. ... Lizard Point The Lizard is a peninsula of Cornwall, United Kingdom, and contains the most southerly point of the island Great Britain, Lizard Point. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq... Cornish Flag Cornwall (Cornish: Kernow) is a county in South West England on the peninsula that lies to the west of the River Tamar. ...

Currently owned by BT Group plc, it is the largest satellite earth station in the world with over 25 communications dishes in use (and over 60 dishes in total) – they provide a significant proportion of Great Britain's satellite connectivity and the site also links into undersea cable lines. The first dish, Antenna One (dubbed "Arthur"), was built on the site in 1962 to link with Telstar and received the first live transatlantic television broadcasts from the United States. It was the first open parabolic design and is 29.5 metres in diameter and weighs 1,118 tonnes. It is now a Grade II listed structure and is therefore protected. The largest dish is the 32 metre diameter "Merlin" (other dishes include Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde after characters in Arthurian legend). BT Group plc (also known as British Telecommunications plc) which trades as BT (and previously as British Telecom) is the privatised UK state telecommunications operator. ... MILSTAR:A Communciation Satellite A satellite is any object that orbits another object (which is known as its primary). ... A transatlantic telephone cable is a submarine communications cable that carries telephone traffic under the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... The original Telstar had a roughly spherical shape. ... The metre, or meter (US), is a measure of length. ... A tonne (symbol t), sometimes referred to as a metric tonne, is a measurement of weight. ... Buckingham Palace, a Grade I listed building. ... Queen Guinevere, by William Morris For other uses, see Guinevere (disambiguation). ... Tristan and Iseult as depicted by Herbert Draper (1864 -1920). ... In the Arthurian Legend of Tristan and Iseult (alternatively Isolde, Isode, Isotta, etc. ... A bronze Arthur in plate armour with visor raised and with jousting shield is one of the chivalrous mourners at the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I (died 1519), in Innsbruck King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship...

The earth station is powered from the national grid but the site is equipped with five large diesel generators which can provide indefinite backup power in the event of a national grid power failure. An Earth station is the ground based (terrestrial) end of a communications link to an object in space. ...

A wind generator farm near by is believed by many to be part of the complex, but it is in fact completely unconnected to BT and is linked to the national grid. A tall tower holds a wind turbine aloft where winds are consistently stronger. ...

A visitor centre at the site attracts technically-minded tourists. Inside are many interactive exhibits, a cafe, shop and one of Britain's fastest cyber cafes (a one gigabit pipe and a theoretical maximum speed per iMac of 100Mbit). There are also tours around the main BT site and into the heart of the oldest dish, Arthur.

On 12 September 2006 it was revealed that Satellite Operations at Goonhilly are to be shutdown in 2008 and moved to Madley in Herefordshire[1]. Those idiots! Portal:Currentevents September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station The official BT Goonhilly site.
• Goonhilly Gallery Photos in and around Goonhilly.