Goonhilly Earth Station

Goonhilly is just south of Helston, on The Lizard, in Cornwall.

With over 60 dishes on site, Goonhilly is the largest satellite earth station in the world. 

Able to transmit to every corner of the globe via space, and through undersea fibre optic cables, Goonhilly simultaneously handles millions of international phone calls, emails, and TV broadcasts.

We took a visit and had a look around!

The Goonhilly station is maintained and operated by British Telecom.
You can click here to go to the Official Goonhilly Web Site.

There is a Visitors' Centre, which offers an interesting, in-depth view into how telecommunications technologies work and contribute to the world.

Here's a few pics and a bit about some of the bigger dishes there:

Uther

Opened in 1968, and with a diameter of 27.4 metres, it is similar in size to Arthur (see below).

It serves Intelsat satellites over the Atlantic and handles mostly phone and data transmissions.

Recent events handled by Uther include the Rugby World Cup and Test Cricket from South Africa.

Merlin

The largest dish on the site, with a 32 metre diameter.

Unofficially known as the Blue Peter, after the children's TV programme that featured its official opening. 

This antenna carried the Live Aid Concert in 1985, to over 2 billion people, in about 100 countries.

Arthur

This was the first dish to be opened in Goonhilly, in 1962. 

It weighs 1,118 tonnes and has a diameter of 25.9 metres.

Designed to work with the fast orbiting Telstar satellite, Arthur can turn a complete circle in under 3 minutes, and can move from the horizontal through 90 degrees to the vertical.