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.
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 1,100 tonnes. The largest dish is the 32 metre diameter "Merlin" (other dishes include Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde after characters in Arthurian legend).
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.
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 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."
