How long do you think the colonists lasted

[aliennaire]

Or there's always the possibility of the colony having a specific window of time for off-world communications, due to the atmosphere. Perhaps a few hours for each day? Just enough for something to go hideously wrong.

I've been thinking this as well. Or it requires an obscene amount of power, and they can only fire it up every fortnight. Or something.

Or depends on LV-427 rotation cycle, and planetoid must be aligned in some specifical way to make a direct radio channel with Earth.

Xenomorphine, thanks for posting that episode! Just rewatched it and paid attention to the parents lines, when they discussed whether should they report straight away about the derelict or not:
- Shouldn't we call it in?
- Let's wait till we know what to call it in as...

So the same way, other colonists may have decided to understand what they are into firstly (after Russ Jorden was brought back to complex and probably the Alien bursted), and report it later, but delayed the transmission so long that lost access to their radio dish.
Hence I'd rather incline to there-was-no-transmittion-received-on-the-Earth theory, the absence of responce caused the Sulaco departure.
And Burke was just a suit.

[Salt The Fries]

OK, but some tectonic / volcanic activity damaging the ship aside, how the hell did they get in egg chamber, unless eggs where also somewhere else? How did they climb down there without equipment?

[OpenMaw]

OK, but some tectonic / volcanic activity damaging the ship aside, how the hell did they get in egg chamber, unless eggs where also somewhere else? How did they climb down there without equipment?

No real way to quantify that without seeing what it was like inside. Its possible the Jockey Chamber had caved in and it was easy to get down inside the egg chamber. Or perhaps they found another storage room elsewhere in the ship, or the facehuggers had been disturbed en masse, and much like their adult brethen, had built a "hive" of some sort where they were dormant, and Russ disturbed one.

Many possibiltiies, but no real way to say for sure since we didn't see inside. 

[SM]

OK, but some tectonic / volcanic activity damaging the ship aside, how the hell did they get in egg chamber, unless eggs where also somewhere else? How did they climb down there without equipment?

I doubt the only way into the egg chamber was via that acid hole that Kane found.

[SiL]

Especially considering the chamber seemed to wrap around the length of the ship. The gaping hole the Jordens enter may well have lead straight down into it.

[Xenomorphine]

Well, you see, on alien planets, the Easter Bunny has very different motivations and...

[xeno_alpha_07]

Well, you see, on alien planets, the Easter Bunny has very different motivations and...