Triunfo Pass Earth Station | satellite/space tracking station

USA / California / Westlake Village / South Bardman Avenue, 1700
 satellite/space tracking station  Add category
1700 South Bardman Avenue
Malibu, CA 90265

C-band satellite earth station owned and operated by AT&T. This telecommunications facility was built in 1976 by the US Federal Government and given to GTE Satellite Corporation to be used to provide domestic communications services. In 1986 the station was purchased by AT&T and expanded to include international services. The facility serves all Pacific Rim nations, Central and South America, and Antarctica. It has brought Olympics broadcasting from Korea, Japan and China to the United States.

The station's three 32-meter antennas (106 feet across, about 11 stories tall) weigh 146 tons each, rotate axially on rails and are AT&T's largest on the west coast.

www.westphalfamily.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=...
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   34°4'51"N   118°53'47"W

Comments

  • Bill...(?) TRI didn't 'replace' Jamesburg, it simply took the traffic from Jamesburg when Jamesburg was closed. It would be nice to note something like this about the facility... Built in 1977 by the US government to entice the nations telecom industry into satellite telecommunication, this facility was awarded to GT&E. However GT&E soon wanted out of the business and sold it to AT&T in 1984. The facility serves all Pacific Rim nations, Central and South America - and Antarctica. It has brought Olympics broadcasting from Korea, Japan and China to the United States.
  • I worked there '79-'81. It was GTE Spacenet. In '81 I transferred to the GTE Satellite station in Sacramento. It was a T1 data circuit for GTEDS Data Corp. between Sacramento and the GTEDS facility in Marina Del Rey. My supervisor was still based out of Triunfo until GTE sold off Sprint, I believe in 1987.
  • I was the very first AT&T Communications (Communications Technician) employee to walk into the Triunfo Pass Satellite Earth Station on Friday, January 3, 1986. At that moment of time the Triunfo Pass Earth Station was handling mostly domestic telephone message traffic between the Homosassa, Florida Earth Station, the Triunfo Pass Earth Station and an earth station located at the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii to support telephone traffic for General Telephone and Hawaii Telephone. AT&T needed to quickly convert the Triunfo Pass Earth Station for international message traffic to complete an agreement for the takeover of Comsat by a year 1990 deadline. It was a very caotic scene as there were no other technicians available with any satellite expertise available or wanting to move to Malibu, California......I was the only one coming from NBC television and CBS television satellite technology. None of my other satellite technology technician associates were willing to make the move to Triunfo Pass for family reasons. We finally populated the staff with technicians from computer sales, telegraph technicians, cable crews and other outside crews, all with no satellite technology knowledge backgrounds of the business. I finally retired from Triunfo Pass on November 20, 2000 after 41 years of service with AT&T, or 14 years of service at the AT&T Triunfo Pass Satellite Earth Station.
  • Hello, I worked there for a very short time in 2001 and remember meeting you briefly. I search on Triunfo Pass from time to time to try and find out what happened to Paul, Marco, and Ron.
This article was last modified 2 years ago