Experiences working for Cable & Wireless

On Tuesday 15th April 2008 the Club was lucky to have a presentation by Les Green. Les came to share his experiences of working with Cable and Wireless in the 70's, a company he worked for after leaving the RAF.
The first place Les showed us was the Turks & Caicos Islands, location 550 miles south/east of Miami. When Les was there it wasn't a tourist spot as it is now, it was a beautiful island of white sands, picturesque wooden shuttered house in the same style as those found in Jamaica & Bermuda, 2 US Military bases and the remains of what had once been its main industry – Salinas – Salt Production.

The Capital Isle is Grand Turk, seven by one mile in size, with its highest peak measuring 75 feet. The two military camps are a naval base and an air force base. The USAF base operated a Pan am facility and was part of NASA's Eastern Test Lanes – Les was there when they did the Lunar landing, everyone was euphoric.

The town landing strip was nothing like the USAF strip – or any other strip I have ever seen. It was rough and windswept with a roughly constructed dilapidated shack as the departure lounge – but it worked (there very own T5). Landing at the USAF strip was expensive,, the Americans demanded a high level of insurance before they would allow planes to use their strip, so people did use the town strip. Eventually however the town strip feel into disrepair and closed.

Another way to the Island was by sea – but a photo showed us how rough they are. Les showed us a picture of the Royal Mail ship, this brought frozen food to the C&W workers, when it came in it resulted in a round of dinner parties.

Then we saw pictures of the Salinas, which hadn't been used since the mid 1800's so they were in Les's words “whiffy”. Les took us through how they were operated and had pictures of the wind pumps and sluices. Salt production had been the Islands main industry but as refrigeration became more in use, the use of salt as a meat preservative declined. The island still had many donkeys which had been used to transport salt – now they contented themselves by wandering about and being a hazard to any keen gardener if they gained access.

Cable & Wireless had had a station on the Islands since the early days of submarine technology. Then radio took over, so then it became a HF station to Jamaica & Bermuda, telex by HF was not reliable 24/7 at that time. The station also did links to near islands via UHF by phone and later by telex.

At the time Les was there C&W were planning to take over the local telephone services, which at that time were based in a local prison. When the warden was busy it wasn't unusual to get a prisoner answering the call.

After his time in the Turks, Les went to Belize, then was moved on as a secondee to Sierra Leone, in its capital Freetown on the West African Coast. Les was part of the team who were to install a Standard B Earth Station.

Les was overseeing the project, but had specialist assistance for the building of the foundations of the Station.

Les took us through the complete process of constructing the foundations, the erection of the structure and the application of the antenna dish to the top – all well supported visually. They faced many problems – including the problem of space, with 300 crates to keep on a site that was not flat, nor roomy, that had been heavily vegetated, it was a challenge.

The Standard B dish is 11meters wide, and only moved half hourly, unlike Standard A, so it moved on a step track. The project was completed to time. Which was just as well as a large opening ceremony was planned with The President of Sierra Leone doing an inaugural call to a neighbouring president.

It was an entertaining talk which introduced us to some exotic and beautiful locations, Les was a warm, friendly and informative Guest Speaker. Everyone enjoyed the night.

I would like to again extend thanks to Les for a great night's entertainment from Chester & District Radio Society.

Lisa Mossop
Chairman