POINT ARENA CABLE STATION

MNCHCA01

Type: Cable Landing Point

Location: Near Manchester and Point Arena on California's north coast.

Paths: Microwave: Brush Mountain. Cable: HAW-4, TCP-4

The AT&T Point Arena Cable station is one of the termination points for trans-Pacific cables coming from the west coast of the USA.  The station was originally constructed in 1956 with the introduction of the first trans ocean cable to Hawaii from the mainland.  This coaxial cable was known as HAW1, was put into operation in 1957 and provided long distance telephone service to our island neighbors.  The reason for the location of the cable station in rural northern California, is because the point that it is on is the closest direct point to the Hawaiian islands, requiring the least cable.  This station was only a transition/repeater type facility and actual connection of the cable to the rest of the US telco network was accomplished at the Sacramento regional center.  In the early 1960's microwave service was added to increase bandwidth and allow calls to be connected to the station via microwave routing through Brush Mountain then Cloverdale or surface coax cable initially through Cloverdale and later through Dunnigan and into Sacramento.

In 1989, with the more wide-spread use of fiber optic, the original HAW1 coax cable was retired from service and replaced with a new fiber line to Hawaii known as HAW-4.  An additional fiber route was constructed in 1989 known as TCP-4 and this connected to Vancouver, Canada and Japan.  Recently in 2000 another cable was introduced known as the Japan-US Cable and this has 3 landing points in the US and 3 points in Japan.

Thanks to Anthony in Chico for the photos.

Click on picture for larger size.

 Sign at facility entrance.

  Overall facility.

The surrounding rural area is host to deer as can be seen in center of photo.

 Classic AT&T cable sign, notice the rust and weathering from the sea air on the steel.

  Beach where cables transition to undersea.  Microwave "silo" in background.

  Microwave silo.  Antennas pointed to "Brush Mountain".

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