ing with a small
torch battery. As I became more experienced I began repairing simple
broadcast receivers for my friends and putting up wire antennas for
reception for people who had bought broadcast receivers.

In 1929 Nasos and I were in our final year at the Megareos School.
We built a very simple AM transmitter tuned to about 500 metres and we
broadcast the performance of a play acted by the final year students.
I have no idea if anybody heard our transmission, but it was certainly
the first amateur broadcast in Greece.

Nasos and I spoke to each other with very simple AM transmitters
across the 60 metres or so separating our homes, again without knowing
whether anybody else ever accidentally tuned in to our very low power
transmissions.

In 1932 I was called up for my compulsory Military service and
ended up attending the Reserve Officers Cadet School. After my
military training I started work at the Lambropoulos Brothers shop in
the Metohikon Tameion building. It was there that I made the
acquaintance of Takis Coumbias, who had come to Greece from Russia
with his family. Takis had had eight years experience of amateur
radio in Russia, and he told us how the radio clubs operated under the
strict supervision of the Communist Party.

Three years later, in 1935, I moved to Tavaniotis' workshop as his
mechanic. 'Bill' had built an AM and CW transmitter with an output of
150 watts. He used the callsign SV1KE. We had regular contacts with
George Moens SU1RO in Cairo, Egypt. George is still active in his
native land of Belgium with the callsign ON5RO in Brussels. He should
be well into his 80s by now. In 1938 George came to Athens with his
wife Beba and their little boy Robert to visit her parents who were
Greek, and of course they came to our shack and we had the pleasure of
meeting them in person after many years of chatting over the air.

In Greece we are 7 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and so
our contacts with the U.S.A. took place well after midnight, our time.
One of the stations we contacted very regularly was Charles Mellen
W1FH in Boston. Chas was born in Boston of Greek parents. His father
came to Greece in 1936 or 1937 with Charles' younger sister, a pretty
little girl of about 14. They came to Bill's shack and were able to
speak to Boston with the equipment shown in this photograph taken by
Norman. After the end of World War II W1FH together with W6AM of
California