Canada Mill Village Earth Station 1967 to 1986

  • 7 years ago
https://www.oldhistoryns.ca
Charleston was built in the 1960's as Canada's first earth-satellite station, Teleglobe Earth Satellite ,Mill Village Earth Station, telephone that bounced a signal off the satellite , Where Earth Satellite station in Mill Village go ,Mill Village NS earth Station, Computer in Mill Village Queens County NS ,Who destroy the Earth Station, Earth Station technology is out dated ,
Why didn’t the people make this into a great museum is opportunity that was lost. We knew few people that work there and as a boy it was wow what awesome site when it was working!
Teleglobe started off life as the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (COTC), and the facility in Charleston was built in the 1960's as Canada's first earth-satellite station. I remember watching parts of the 1984 Winter Olympics from Sarajevo, and seeing the graphics showing how the signal was being beamed into Canadian households, via the Charleston facility. Around the same time, I also visited the facility on a field trip with the Beavers or Cubs. The time lag present in satellite communications was demonstrated to us by allowing us to use a telephone that bounced a signal off the satellite; we could say something, and hear it bounce back with some delay

An old information board lies partly buried in the grass outside one of the main buildings.
Teleglobe started off life as the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (COTC), and the facility in Charleston was built in the 1960's as Canada's first earth-satellite station. I remember watching parts of the 1984 Winter Olympics from Sarajevo, and seeing the graphics showing how the signal was being beamed into Canadian households, via the Charleston facility. Around the same time, I also visited the facility on a field trip with the Beavers or Cubs. The time lag present in satellite communications was demonstrated to us by allowing us to use a telephone that bounced a signal off the satellite; we could say something, and hear it bounce back with some delay. I don't remember what I said.
The original dish was installed on the large concrete base in the middle of the photo above, and the bottom of the inflatable dome rested on the rim of the concrete wall that circles it. I seem to recall that there was a small window in the dome for the dish to "see" out, but that was 30 years ago and I may be mistaken. The wooden roof trusses were added later, to shelter the area to allow storage for road salt on the far side of the base - at least, I assume that is what was done. Remains of the salt are still there, along with the green air filters that I assume have been strewn about by vandals. The trenches in the floor once accommodated electrical cables and the like.
The original dish eventually became obsolete, and was replaced by two more modern dishes that were installed outside, and did not require a dome for protection.



Of those two dishes, one had already been scrapped, and the final dome had been cut down - but was not scrapped for several years. It was kind of eerie to see this dish crashed down to the ground.

We visited the facility four times, starting in November 2007. By the time of our last visit in April 2011, one of the two main buildings had been torn down, and the fallen dish had been removed. Google Maps has high resolution imagery of the facility taken before some of the larger buildings were demolished, but
apparently after the last dish was scrapped, so I would guess this was taken sometime in the summer of 2010. A friend of mine made a nice art print from a photo of the caution tape wrapped around the column in this photo during one of our earlier visits to Teleglobe. He went back on a subsequent trip to see if he would get a better image from his new camera, only to find it had been vandalized by the paintballers that occasionally used the facility for their war games. My revulsion for paintball probably stems from the paintball paint still oozing from many of the surfaces during our expeditions there.

My understanding is that when the facility was abandoned, it was left largely intact, and it was some time before things started being removed. I don't know if the facility was stripped by the legitimate owners, or if it was scavenged by others

Posted by Alexander (Sandy) McClearn at 17:02
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Labels: abandoned, canadian overseas telecommunications corporation,charleston, communications, cotc, derelict, earth satellite station, mill village,nova scotia, photography, ruins, teleglobe

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