HOW DID IT WORK? 

The beam stations worked in pairs - one transmitting and the
other receiving.

As mentioned previously Tetney transmitted directly to Sydenham near Melbourne in Australia and India. The Indian receiving station was at Dhond about 50 miles east of Poona and the Poona transmitter was at Kirkee about 75 miles south east of Bombay.

Messages from Australia and India were received at Winthorpe which is just north of Skegness.

The other pairs of beam stations, with the transmitting station first were Ongar and Brentwood; Dorchester and Somerton; and Bodmin and Bridgewater.

The system worked in the following way:- if someone wanted to send a telegram from a town in England to another in Australia the message was written out and handed in at the Post Office.

It was marked "Via Imperial" and telegraphed to the central telegraph office in London. There the written message was changed into dots and dashes and punched onto a paper tape. This was then put into a transmitting machine which usually operated at 150 words per minute. These signals were sent along land lines to Tetney. These lines were laid alongside the railway from London to Holton-le-Clay Station and then to the Beam Station.

At the Beam Station they passed through a series of valves to the aerials and were then transmitted to their destination. The messages travelled at the speed of light (approx, 3000,000 metres per second) so that to all intents and purposes the reception was simultaneous with the transmission. At the telegraph office they were converted back into words or figures and delivered as a telegram to the recipient.

It is clear that this was an exceptionally important service and to ensure that there were no interruptions to it considerable precautions were taken. Almost all the vital equipment at the station was provided in triplicate and additional spares were kept close to hand.

The power for the station was provided by the Grimsby Electricity Works at 6500 volts and the Beam Station was linked to the Scartho sub-station with the cables being laid alongside the A16 to Holton-le-Clay then under the railway crossing following the road to Tetney. At "The Grange" the line left the road and skirted the farm buildings until reaching the Beam Station.



 Inside The Message Centre, London
 Inside The Beam Station
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