Did you ever wonder how PBase displays the listing of recently-revised galleries?
This “recent beacon” is the core of the system that does it. Beacons like the one
pictured here work with local-level translators to provide the gallery data to subscribers.
This network is separate from the one that transmits the images. This separate system
is necessary because the communications infrastructure in most countries cannot handle
both PBase images and PBase data simultaneously.

Recent beacons are omni-directional transmitters that beam “recent packets” all over
the place via inverted linear multi-phase signals, a technology first incorporated
in eight-track tape players of the 1970s. These packets are received by translators
located covertly in every community in the world where subscribers live. The translators
convert the signals to a non-linear magnetic form---something your hard drive can store.
From there they are mated with the data coming through your internet connection to
produce the listing of galleries that some people spend their entire lives looking at.

The odd appearance of the recent beacon is based on a technological requirement. As
galleries are revised, the data about those revisions are “stacked” at the image
warehouse. Trial and error has shown that the best way to transmit this type of
information is to leave it in the stacked configuration. Technicians
sometimes call the result a “pancake signal.”