Cable & wireless carries out major mechanical maintenance
Have you been wondering why the telephone and internet services needed to be off last week? Cable & Wireless have been undertaking their major biennial maintenance and inspection programme on the satellite dish at The Briars.

The dish is now fifteen years old and despite its age is in good condition as a result of the on-going maintenance programme undertaken by Cable & Wireless staff. Regular maintenance is essential to ensure the continued safe and reliable operation of the dish which is used for all international telephone and internet services with direct links to Ascension Island and the United Kingdom.

The maintenance involved the checking of all bearings, bushes, gearboxes, torque limiters, jack-screws, motors, limit switches, cables and connectors. Safety features such as emergency stop buttons were tested as well. A full inspection was carried out on the actual structure with checks for wear and rust. New bellows were installed as the old ones were starting to suffer from age and water might have got into some of moving parts. Anyone looking down on The Briars from the road to Alarm Forest might have noticed the dish was pointing in unusual directions. In order to check all the moving parts, the antenna was moved throughout the full range of possible positions. On this occasion, inside the dish was repainted with special paint. The rest of the structure will be painted over the coming weeks however it will not be necessary to interrupt telephone and internet services. As no particular problems were identified during the maintenance, it was decided that down time scheduled for the Friday was not required.

The inspection of satellite dishes such at the one in St Helena is a specialised activity and a mechanical engineer was brought in especially to supervise the work. Many of you may remember Bob as he has been here every few years since 1989 when he built the satellite dish. While here, he also carried out a full inspection of the satellite dish at Bryant’s Beacon as well as the masts at High Knoll Fort and Blue Hill “The Depot”.

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