To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/retailandleisure/0,3800011842,39161692,00.htm

Photos: The legendary satellite dishes of Goonhilly
Merlin, Arthur and Guinevere - in pictures

By Steve Ranger

Published: Tuesday 22 August 2006

This is Guinevere, aka Goonhilly 3, one of the dishes at BT's Goonhilly satellite earth station.

It's the largest such site in the world, with 61 dishes, set on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.

The site handles around 10 million telephone calls per week as well as data, fax, videoconferencing and telex communications from the Atlantic and Indian Ocean areas, as well as some television broadcasts.

Some of the antennas have been given names including Arthur and Guinevere because of the links between Cornwall, King Arthur and Celtic mythology. But the staff still use the original numbers - Goonhilly 1, 2, 3 and so on - to identify them.

Photo credit: Steve Ranger