You can see some amazing artefacts at Porthcurno - see some examples in this section. We look forward to seeing you here in the near future.
Borkum underwater cable (1914) : acts of warToday one of the crucial elements of any war is the battle of electronic warfare. This focuses on disrupting the enemies radio messages and communication systems. This can include radio jamming, delivering misinformation and disrupting guided missile signals. But the roots of today's sophisticated technology, began with the telegraph.
This section of cable was spliced off when the British deliberately cut a German cable, which linked Borkum with Tenerife, on 4th August 1914, at the beginning of the First World War. This meant that the Germans lost an essential communications link to their outpost on the Atlantic island.
In fact, as soon as war was declared, the British cut all German cables running down the English channel and even managed to divert some of them to be used by the Allies.
Portable field telegraph (1917) : ready for battleThe telegraph opened up new opportunities to control and direct the flow of battle. Commanders in the field could keep in touch with their soldiers in the front lines and, with the static nature of trench warfare, an effective telegraph network was a realistic options.
This portable, self-contained mini telegraph station was undoubtedly designed for military use in the First World War, in 1917 by Siemens Brothers of London. It had an automatic receiver that printed out messages by feeding paper from a drawer through an inking device. A wind-up clockwork device drove the paper through the mechanism.
Sending messages was much more simply done with a Morse key housed inside the sturdy wooden case.
Cross-channel submarine cable : a European communication barrierLinking Britain to the European continent was essential for the British before they could secure effective telegraphic communications to the rest of the world, particularly the Empire, but it wasn't easy.
This cable section is from the first attempt to cross the English Channel with a telegraph cable. Laid in 1850, it was flimsy and had to be weighted down with lead blocks every hundred metres or so. Although it was laid successfully the engineers found that the messages sent were garbled and undecipherable, as soon as they started to test it. By the following morning the cable was completely dead.
The following year a new design of armoured cable was laid which was much more successful. It opened in late 1851 to become the UK's first international telecommunications link.
