Porthcurno Telegraph Museum Undersea Cable Termination Hut

For anyone interested in the history of long distance international communications, this is a "must see". Most of the museum in located in underground bunkers but part of it is the cable hut on the beach where under sea telegraph cables were brought ashore and terminated.

Around the walls of the hut, which measures approximately 4 x 2.5 metres, are the cable ends of the cables to places such as Gibraltar, Vigo (Spain), Fayal (Azores), Brest (France), St John (Newfoundland), and Bilbao. At these locations, operators would receive the message, and if necessary re-route it to the next location on the undersea cable network.

Morse code was used at a very slow speed of about 6 word per minute. Only one message could be sent at any one time on a given cable which gave rise to the high cost of sending telegrams until the later part of the 20 Century when larger capacity coaxial cables and eventually fibre optic cables become available.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Porthcurno
• Telegraph
• Museum
• Cornwall
• Undersea
• Cable
• Morse
• Code
• Fayal
• Gibraltar
• St
• John
• Vigo
• Bilbao
• Brest