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PITCAIRN COMMUNICATIONS HISTORY

After Pitcairn's discovery by the outside world, keeping up that contact has been iffy at best. Lying well off the heavily-traveled trade routes, physical contacts were limited to ships accidentally straying off course, or intentionally diverting to visit this isolated, fascinating destination. Even today, delivery of physical mail, packages, and cargo can take months while awaiting a ship willing to make a delivery run.

The earliest efforts to communicate with vessels near Pitcairn were signal fires set up from The Edge or other high place, both to acknowledge a ship's presence and to ack as a lighthouse to warn ships of the island's presence after dark. The firing of the Bounty cannons were also used to salute passing ships. Both of these methods, however, were unable to convey useful information.

When Vice Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby visited the island in 1852, at the invitation of the Islanders, he made a number of suggestions, one of which was the use of signal flags and a simple code to warn of dangers or signal a safe landing site. The flag system was used well into the 20th century, When Andrew Young developed a shuttered lamp by which Morse Code signals could be sent to ships within visual range.

In 1922, the Marconi Company donated a crystal radio receiver which could receive messages from ships beyond the horizon, but could not transmit. In 1926, a New Zealand radio enthusiast donated a coil transmitter, and Pitcairn could now communicate with ships up to 150 miles distant, into the normal trade route between Panama and New Zealand. The threat of war in the Pacific in 1940 led to regularly scheduled contact between Pitcairn and other islands, and the New Zealand Navy Office set up a meteorological station on Pitcairn.

Starting with Andrew Young, and carried on for many years by Tom & Betty Christian, ham radio communications have been the mainstay of Pitcairn's contact with the outside world.

Telephone communications, which started with donated outdated equipment, now connect the homes and buildings on the island. Radio telephone service is available on a pre-scheduled basis, 6 evenings a week, from outside locations with AT&T service.

By 1960, affordable transistor radios allowed Islanders to pick up broadcasts from the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. While live television has not yet reached the island, the VCR is very popular.

Now with the advent of computer-based communication, satellites, and the speed with which the international Internet is growing, many people feel that it is just a matter of time, and perhaps a very short time indeed, before even the most remote island on the face of the world will be on-line with the rest of us.

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