NEW YORK (AP) – Barack Obama and his message of change will get a ringing endorsement on Inauguration Day from 12 bells at a church in New York City.

The full peal, which lasts three-and-a-half hours, rarely has been heard since the "change-ringing" bells were installed three years ago at Trinity Church.

"Change ringing is a way that we express the joy of our community, and I think much of the nation is joyous about this inauguration," said Jeremy Bates, a Manhattan lawyer and former Obama campaign worker who will be among the 12 ringers pulling on sturdy ropes in the church's bell tower to mark the historic occasion.

Change ringing is far more common outside the United States. Most cathedrals in England have sets of 12 bells like the one at Trinity, the largest in this country. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, has a set of 10.

On Tuesday the ringers will climb 100 steps of a narrow, spiral staircase and a 20-foot ladder to a tiny change-ringing room, 20 feet below the belfry of the church near the World Trade Center site.

In the sanctuary below, several hundred people will watch the swearing-in of the nation's first black president on a giant television. When the ceremony ends, the ringers will begin the peal.

Unlike stationary bells known as chimes or carillons, the change-ringing bells swing or rotate 360 degrees on a wheel as ringers pull on ropes. It's a manoeuvre even an 80-year-old can perform though the bells weigh from 500 pounds to 2,500 pounds.

"It's a question of finesse, coordination, not brute strength, and listening to where your bell is," master ringer Tony Furnivall said.

The centuries-old method produces a rich, complex combination of sounds with endless permutations of tonal patterns that have no recognisable melody.

The more bells means the longer they can be rung without repeating a row or change. Eight bells, for example, have 40,000 permutations, while 12 bells offer a staggering 480 million patterns.

Full peals consisting of at least 5,000 changes and lasting more than three hours traditionally are performed on special occasions. Trinity's band of ringers last performed one on December 20, both as a concert and a rehearsal for Inauguration Day. Before that, the bells rang a full peal in 2006, the year they were installed with a $1 million gift from a British bell enthusiast.