So ended the first phase of amateur radio activity in Greece.

CHAPTER SIX

WORLD WAR II AND AFTER IN GREECE

Socrates Coutroubis SV1AE described to me how his interest in
radio was aroused in 1935 when he was 13 years old. His father had
decided to buy a domestic radio receiver.

"Of course in 1935 Athens had no broadcasting service," Socrates
said, "so the receiver had to be able to tune in to the short wave
broadcasting bands. As we already had a Westinghouse refrigerator my
father decided we should try one of their receivers. When I say 'try'
I must explain that it was the usual thing to ask a number of agents
to submit their latest models for comparison at one's home. I
remember that together with the Westinghouse, we had an Atwater Kent,
Philco, RCA, Stromberg-Carlson and several sets of European
manufacture such as Philips, Blaupunkt, Saba etc. We finally settled
for the German Saba because it was the prettiest and blended better
with our living room furniture!

"There were very few stations to be found on the short waves. But
I remember the Dutch station PCJ run by the Philips company in
Eindhoven. The announcer was Edward Startz who spoke perfect English
and about a dozen other languages. "This is the Happy Station,
broadcasting from the Netherlands" he would say cheerfully.

"A couple of years after we had bought the radio we were returning
from an open air movie round about midnight when I noticed a book on
sale at a road-side kiosk. It was entitled THE RADIO AMATEUR'S
HANDBOOK published by the A.R.R.L. I had no idea what the initials
stood for. The price was astronomical for my pocket but after a
little coercion I got my father to buy it for me. When I began to
read it I discovered the existence of radio amateurs. It was the 1939
edition and I found a circuit for a receiver which looked simple
enough for me to try. It was described as a regenerative detector and
audio amplifier.

"At that time the best place to buy components in Athens was at a
store called Radio Karayianni, but three others shops also stocked
valves (tubes) and components. One was the Electron run by George
Spanos, who was the agent for the Dutch Philips company. Then there
was a shop in a basement next door, Konstav Electric, owned by 'Bill'
Tavaniotis SV1KE. A wide range of components were also stocked by the
Raytheon agent, Nick Katselis SV1N