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MID-EAST EARTH STATION OPENING

July 10, 1969

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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.

See the article in its original context from July 1969.

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The first Earth Station for satellite communication in the Middle East and Africa will be officially opened at Bahrain on Monday the 14th July. It was simultaneouslyannounced in Manama, Bahrain, and from Buckingham Palace, London, that the inaugural telephone call at the ceremony will be made by the Ruler of Bahrain, His Highness Shaikh Isa Bin Sulman Al-Khalifa and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Shaikh Isa will make the call from the Earth Station before 300 guests.

Prince Philip will be speaking from Windsor Castle. The Earth Station is owned and operated by Cable and Wireless Ltd. and is the company's first for public service. It will operate via the Intelsat III satellite stationed in orbit 22,300 miles over the Indian Ocean and provide the States of the Arabian Gulf in which Cable and Wireless operates, with direct links to the worldwide satellite communication system. The Earth Station is sited at Ras Abu Jarjur, 20 miles south of the city of Manama, Bahrain, and the giant 90 ft. diameter aerial dish and 60 ft. tower together weigh some 800 tons. The total cost was some £2,100,000 and the station is now ready to line up with the satellite in a few days time.

Construction teams and engineers have worked round the clock, at night under floodlights, to complete the project on time. Bahrain will be the third station to line up with the Indian Ocean satellite following the United Kingdom and Japan. In the next 18 months the following territories will also be using the satellite Hong Kong, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Kuwait, Pakistan, Singapore and Spain. Contract for the construction of the Bahrain Earth Station was placed with the Marconi Company Ltd. The buildings were designed by the Cable and Wireless Chief Architect's Department and the contractors were Hasan and Habib Sons of Mahmood of Bahrain. Cable and Wireless Ltd. have owned and operated an Earth Station on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic for communication links for the Apollo moonshots since 1966 and five more are under construction or planned by the company for public service. One at Hong Kong is only weeks from completion, and a second also is planned for the colony. Additionally Cable and Wireless have plans for an Earth Station at Jamaica and two more in the Caribbean.

An associate company of the Cable and Wireless group, East African External Telecommunications Co. Ltd. is also building an Earth Station at Mount Margaret, Kenya.