60 years ago today, on 11th July 1962, Goonhilly made world history.


Jul 11, 2022

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first ever live transmission of TV signals between two continents via an artificial satellite

Illustration showing Telstar communication path between Goonhilly and the USA
Antenna 1 at Goonhilly
Model of Telstar

On 11th July 1962 engineers at Goonhilly earth station, in Cornwall, UK, beamed TV signals from the newly built satellite communications antenna, Arthur, up into the sky to a large beachball sized satellite, called Telstar, which was speeding west to east approximately 592 miles overhead. Telstar then retransmitted the live video signals to a ground station in the USA - thus ushering in the birth of a revolution in global telecommunications.


An account of the events as they unfolded appeared in the national news:


" During the day of 11 July the sense of polarization of the Goonhilly aerial was reversed and in the evening, on pass 15, excellent pictures were received at Goonhilly from Andover.


During the 16th pass a live television transmission (the first live intercontinental television transmission by an articial satellite) was made from Goonhilly to Andover.


This transmission comprised still captions and test cards, followed by live pictures from British Broadcasting Corporation (B.B.C.) cameras, showing scenes in the control room at Goonhilly, with a commentary from Mr. Raymond Baxter of the B.B.C. and a talk by Capt. C. F. Booth, Deputy Engineer-in-Chief of the British Post Office.


The pictures and accompanying sound received at Andover were reported to be of excellent quality and were broadcast as received throughout the U.S.A. "

Still from Video sent via Goonhilly to the USA
The TELSTAR satellite being mounted on the Thor-Delta launch vehicle

Over the next few days the engineers at Goonhilly achieved several other firsts:


During the 34th pass, on the night 14-15 July, the first 'Fax' (facsimile or photo-telegraph picture) was transmitted, showing the TELSTAR satellite being mounted on the Thor-Delta launch vehicle. 


During the 60th and 61st passes, on the night of 16-17 July, the first transmissions of colour television signals by a satellite were sent from Goonhilly.

The signals, which were on 525-line, 60 frames/second National Television System Committee (N.T.S.C.) standards, comprised captions, test cards and still pictures used to assess colour quality. The transmissions, which were made initially from Goonhilly to the TELSTAR satellite and back to Goonhilly, were also received at Andover. Andover reported: "colour, good; picture quality, excellent."


During the 125th pass, on the 23 July, Goonhilly broadcast European TV to the USA.

The European Broadcasting Union television program, 18-minutes in duration, comprising scenes from many European countries, was received satisfactorily at Andover and broadcast throughout the United States. The picture monitors at Goonhilly showed no perceptible difference in quality between the incoming pictures from the Eurovision link and those transmitted by TELSTAR and received back at Goonhilly.


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