Jamesburg Earth Station
Encyclopedia
The Jamesburg Earth Station is located in Cachagua area of Carmel Valley
, California, about 26 miles (41.8 km) southeast of Monterey. It was originally built in 1968 to support the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The 10-story high, 30 metres (98.4 ft) dish, driven by a Vertex-RSI 7210 drive system, served for about 45 years as the West Coast Teleport of AT&T
/COMSAT's communications Satellite Network, and was the earth station
serving Intelsat
satellites parked in geosynchronous orbit
over the Pacific Ocean
. The dish played a role in capturing and distributing images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The dish is housed in a 20,000 square foot building on a 160 acres (64.7 ha) site that's been subdivided for residential building.
When fiber-optic undersea communication cables became economically competitive in 2002, AT&T shut down the site down and sold the entire station with its facilities intact. It was purchased by 11 ham radio operators who spent five months restoring the facility. They were eventually able to bounce 20 radio signals off the moon. In 2005 the new owner stripped the interior of the facilities and sold the contents as scrap, although the dish itself remains. The site has not been used for commercial telecommunications since.
Carmel Valley Village, California
Carmel Valley Village is a census-designated place in Monterey County, California, United States. At the time of the 2010 census the population was 4,407, down from 4,700 at the 2000 census. In November 2009, a majority of residents voted against incorporation.-Geography and ecology:Carmel Valley...
, California, about 26 miles (41.8 km) southeast of Monterey. It was originally built in 1968 to support the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The 10-story high, 30 metres (98.4 ft) dish, driven by a Vertex-RSI 7210 drive system, served for about 45 years as the West Coast Teleport of AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
/COMSAT's communications Satellite Network, and was the earth station
Earth station
A ground station, earth station, or earth terminal is a terrestrial terminal station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft, and/or reception of radio waves from an astronomical radio source. Ground stations are located either on the surface of the Earth, or within Earth's...
serving Intelsat
Intelsat
Intelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...
satellites parked in geosynchronous orbit
Geosynchronous orbit
A geosynchronous orbit is an orbit around the Earth with an orbital period that matches the Earth's sidereal rotation period...
over the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. The dish played a role in capturing and distributing images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The dish is housed in a 20,000 square foot building on a 160 acres (64.7 ha) site that's been subdivided for residential building.
When fiber-optic undersea communication cables became economically competitive in 2002, AT&T shut down the site down and sold the entire station with its facilities intact. It was purchased by 11 ham radio operators who spent five months restoring the facility. They were eventually able to bounce 20 radio signals off the moon. In 2005 the new owner stripped the interior of the facilities and sold the contents as scrap, although the dish itself remains. The site has not been used for commercial telecommunications since.