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Radio Broadcast
The Company had not yet, even with the new Cape San Antonio and New Orleans stations in operation, attained uninterrupted hourly communication between the United States and Central America. It was during this period that the Company conceived the idea of a part cable and part radio connection between the United States and Central America to tide over the time until new and better radio apparatus could 'be developed and installed at its stations. The schedules of their steamships, equipped with 2 K. W. Fessenden radio sets, were so arranged that one of these vessels was in Colon harbor six days out of each week. These ships, while lying at the dock in Colon, could communicate with Port Limori and thus came into being the telegraphic route to Central America known as "Via Colon Radio." Messages over this route were sent by direct cable from New York to Colon, where they were delivered to the United Fruit Company offices and then to their ships in port for transmission to points in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and to Bocas del Toro via Port Limon radio. Service over this route was first established in 1909, and it materially decreased the time required for telegraph service between the United States and Costa Rica and Nicaragua, as well as materially increasing the efficiency of telegraph communication between these coun
Below. View of the Radio Station at Swan Island, once the haunt of buccaneers in the days of the Spanish Main
tries. This Colon radio service via United Fruit Company ships continued without interruption until the passage of the law prohibiting the use of radio transmitters on ships in Colon harbor. Since that time messages over this route have been handled through the United States Government Radio Station at Cristobal and thence via Port Limon.
It is interesting to note in connection with the "Via Colon Radio" route that during the Nicaraguan revolution against President Zelaya in 1909, when cable communication between the United States and Europe with Nicaragua and Costa Rica was interrupted at San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, it was only by means of the Company's radio service, through its ships at Colon, that telegraphic communication was possible with those countries. This service, during the Nicaraguan revolution, was so important both to the Government and to the commercial interests of the United States that the Company exerted every effort to keep it going and secured for its ships the best land wire and cable operators in New York. This was prior to the passage of the law prohibiting the use of the American Morse code and requiring operators to be licensed, so that it was possible in those days to procure operators from a wire or cable office and place them on board ship, without previous radio training. Operating, while at the dock in
Above. In spite of its loneliness and perils, the Swan Island radio men are not always depressed