For three decades they have seen history unfold before their eyes. From watching the Berlin Wall being torn down to viewing the task force land on the Falklands, staff at the world's largest satellite earth station have been among the first people in the country to witness momentous events that have shaped the world.

Journalists across the world have beamed their reports of breaking news to the dishes at Madley for the last 30 years and it is thanks to staff there that we have been able to see those iconic images on our TV screens.

But ask any of the staff working there which of the millions of dramatic pictures that have flickered across the bank of screens in their TV monitoring room had the most impact, and you are likely to get the same answer.

"The Twin Towers," said employee Alan Hyde from Ross-on-Wye who is one of the centre's two longest serving members.

"It's the only time I ever phoned home and said "You'll never believe what's going on'. My wife Sara did not know anything was happening and couldn't believe it when I told her."

"We were among the first people outside Manhattan to know what was happening on September 11," said operations manager Paul Frost.

Mr Hyde was a 16-year-old apprentice straight from school when he watched telecommunications history in the making when the first giant antenna was switched on at the BT satellite station which stands in a remote corner of the Herefordshire countryside.

BT had spent years looking for a suitable site to take the strain off the famous Goonhilly station in Cornwall, home to the world's first satellite antenna christened Arthur Arthur, when they found the disused airfield.

The field had a famous past of its own and was know worldwide as the airfield from where Rudolf Hess flew to stand trial at Nuremberg in October 1945, but at that time engineers were only interested in the fact that the remote Street House Farm was in a sheltered rock bowl between the Malvern Hills and the Black Mountains.

That meant the ground could take the weight of the huge structures and there was no electronic background noise to compete with the first satellite signals so weak that scientists compared them to the heat felt from a one-bar electric fire on the moon.

The 290-tonne, 32-metre diameter metal monster which has dominated the local landscape for years.

It moves less than an inch a day as it tracks a satellite 22,000 miles away in the skies above the Indian Ocean.

When the giant bowl was switched on in autumn 1978 it allowed 2000 people to make pre-booked international telephone calls between Britain and 34 countries in the Middle East and Africa.

And two years later the world saw what they could do when the Madley dishes transmitted the famous live TV images of SAS soldiers storming the Iranian Embassy in London.

Uncensored pictures from international disaster zones such as the Asian Tsunami, events such as Live Aid and high profile sporting clashes like the Beijing Olympics have all been beamed to our screens from all the big TV networks via Madley.

"I remember going in one night in the 1980s when all these live, unedited TV pictures started coming in from the Falklands," said Phil Burton who has also been at Madley for over 30 years..

" I knew some people in the SAS so it was terrible when news came in that their helicopter had gone down. That was a real lump in the throat job."

These days the 65 dishes at the 218 acre site deal with all BT's international traffic from telephones, internet, fax and television and most of the data is to and from developing nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where there are no fibre optic cables.

Manager Nick Wood said: "This anniversary is about looking to the future as well as celebrating with pride the communications achievements of the last 30 years. International Communications have never been more important and we see a bright future for Madley playing a vital role in the development as one of the world's great satellite earth stations."

But while it may be one of the busiest satellite stations in the world, to thousands of modern day primary pupils it is a tranquil corner of the countryside where they come to find out about a time before computer games when children went pond dipping and for walks in the woodlands.

Staff at Madley started an environmental studies centre to show how modern technology can be green by cutting down on business travel. Clever landscaping mean children cannot see the dishes hidden behind the hedges from the pond but many know they are there and children at the local school feature the gigantic bowls on their badge.

More than 30 years ago the idea of speaking directly to someone on the other side of the world via webcam or mobile phone was as alien to the older generation as speaking to little men from outer space..

Even Mr Hyde could not have predicted what we take for granted today

He said: "The development in communications has been amazing and especially the pace of change, It will be interesting to see what the next 30 years brings."