Pitcairn Island in the HARC History
Spud Roscoe
Hi DR & All:
We hope you can make this out. It is from my history of HARC, the Halifax Amateur Radio Club.
73
Spud VE1BC
The YANKEE of 1936 was a two masted schooner that had been constructed in the 1890’s and served as a Dutch Pilot vessel. The old pilot service orders were to stay out until no other vessel could. By that time the pilot ship could not risk coming in close to shore, so she was literally built for all kinds of weather. She did not have an engine so was sail only.
Captain Johnson finally broke down and agreed with some personal friends that he should carry a high-frequency radio in 1936. Alan R. Eurich, W8IGQ, from Youngstown, Ohio, had a 2nd class commercial licence and agreed to sail as the radio operator. This was on the “share the cost” basis of course. Captain Johnson agreed to carry the radio but was not about to spend any money on one. He had an old master oscillator power amplifier rig designed for service in 1926 on 100-meter CW installed. Alan rebuilt this old rig with an 801 driving push pull 801’s to work on the high frequency marine bands. His receiver was a Sargent model 12 because Walter Evans of Westinghouse Radio Division had warned him that moisture would be a big problem in the ship. The makers advertised the model 12 as having been made primarily for shipboard use. His antenna was a 55-foot vertical Marconi.
The FCC gave Alan, W8IGQ, permission to transmit on the marine radio frequencies and listen to his amateur friends on the amateur bands. The YANKEE was assigned international call sign WCFT and Alan sailed around the world working his many amateur friends. They transmitted on the amateur bands and he transmitted on the marine bands or frequencies. The QRM of the high ship traffic areas, like around the Panama Canal and the English Channel gave them some trouble, but all in all it worked well. This communication was all in CW.
In 1940 Oakes Spaulding, W1FTR, was the radio operator in YANKEE. They spent a good part of that summer in the South Pacific visiting the islands. What a life! Oakes was transmitting with WCFT on the marine frequency of 8280 kilohertz and listening on the 40-meter amateur frequency of 7280 kilohertz in today’s terminology.
The YANKEE had a wooden hull and my personal feeling is that Oakes would have noticed the difference in his receivers sensitivity from that 1000 kilohertz spread. His equipment would not have been that much different from the equipment I sailed with. The transmitter and the receiver were using the same antenna and the receiver worked much better when tuned to the same frequency as the transmitter. The receiver became less sensitive the more one tuned it away from the frequency the transmitter was tuned.
Oakes had taken delivery of Andrew Young’s new transmitter in Panama and they delivered it to him at Pitcairn Island. Andrew Young was VR6AY but the war was on and Andrew was British so was not allowed to transmit. ARRL warned everyone that if they worked VR6AY it was a “bootlegger”. The October, 1941, issue of QST gives an excellent description of this voyage with YANKEE by Oakes Spaulding including a photo of Andrew Young, VR6AY, at his station.
The sale of special issue postage stamps is the only revenue of Pitcairn Island. That and the wooden carvings the islanders carve and sell to the few ships they manage to talk into stopping off shore. The islands now have a motor launch to go out and meet these ships. It used to be a large rowing launch. There is large surf next to the island and all the islanders, women and children included, would get in the boat and row while singing like only the South Seas Islanders can sing. At times they would disappear between each large wave until they managed to get out in the calmer water. This was a sight to remember by those fortunate enough to see it.
The only marine radio station on Pitcairn Island was a transmitter and receiver that were designed to be fitted in a ship. This station had call sign ZBP and did use CW when ships carried a Radio Officer. This station provided communication with Pitcairn Island only. The postal service was the only other means of communication to anywhere and it was via a vessel that serviced the island on occasion. I can think of a half dozen or more of the residents on the island that were good CW operators. They transmitted on 12110 and 500 kilohertz. The station was open from 0130-0200 and 1730-1800 UTC on 500 and from 1730-1830 UTC on 12 MHz. They also had 2182 kilohertz AM with limited hours of watch keeping.
Today this communication is probably VHF marine band transceiver only. The new cruise ships today do not have an HF receiver on board, so no other ship of any type would have HF equipment. These modern ships communicate via satellite and VHF only. Pitcairn Island is equipped with satellite communications but it is very expensive for them to transmit. They receive anything transmitted to them at no cost to them. Therefore, today a ship can fax the island a message giving the time they plan to stop off the island via satellite but the island will not likely reply to this message.
This is a 1997 Pitcairn Island postage stamp showing Andrew Young, VR6AY, stating he was the first amateur radio operator on the island and started operating in 1938. Note that the stamp shows his call sign in Morse code. There were four Pitcairn Island amateur radio postage stamps in this issue and all four are shown on page 20 of the July, 1997, issue of QST. I had contact with the late Floyd McCoy, VR6AC, while sailing as VE0MO in BOUNTY.
HARC member Russ Latimer, VE1BPP, included his experience on a visit to Pitcairn Island in the September, 1988, HARC Bulletin.
HARC Bulletin, September, 1988
Bill Bligh, VE1BC, requested that HARC obtain call sign VE1MK to match ARRL’s W1MK call sign at the February, 1937, club meeting. He was advised at this meeting that Mr. Hiram Percy Maxim had recently become a silent key and the ARRL planned to replace their W1MK call sign with Mr. Maxim’s W1AW call sign. VE1AW was not available so the club decided to go ahead and obtained the VE1MK call sign.