eorge Gerardos SV1AG (silent key).

"At that time (1958) my AM station consisted of a Hammarlund SP600
receiver and a home-built transmitter using an Italian Geloso
VFO-exciter driving a pair of 6146s in the final, with anode and
screen modulation by a pair of 807s in class AB2. I had also assembled
a double conversion receiver using a Geloso front end. This was
typical of the equipment used in Greece and Italy in the early 1960s.

"Licences continued to be issued until 1967 when the Junta
Colonels Papadopoulos and Patakos established the military
dictatorship. We were all ordered to seal our equipment and obtain
written confirmation from the nearest Police authority that the
disablement had been carried out.

"Six months later, in December of 1967 we started getting our
licences back. Most of us believed that because some of the younger
officers in the military government had received training at the
Pentagon in the U.S.A. they convinced their superiors that it was
better for the genuine amateurs to be allowed to operate their
equipment under close supervision by the military and under new
regulations, rather than have under cover operators starting up all
over again.

"George Gerardos SV1AG had a friend Oresti Yiaka who was involved
in government telecommunications and it was through him that draft
legislation for the issue of amateur licences was instigated, but not
for the first time. Unsuccessful attempts had been made before the war.

"In 1965 when George Papandreou was Prime Minister, on the very
day when the Draft Bill was going to be put before Parliament the
government resigned and another 10 years went by. When legislation
was finally published in the Government Gazette in 1972, owing to the
prevailing political situation (military dictatorship) it had serious
limitations imposed by some Ministries which had to look after their
own interests, especially the Ministry of National Defence. But George
Gerardos, SV1AG, who had been closely involved, decided that it would
be better to overlook certain details which may seem strange to us at
the present time--details which could be rectified at a later date,
provided the law was finally on the Statute book. For instance, I
refer to the very restricted frequencies we were allocated in the
80-metre band, 3.500 to 3.600 MHz. Obviously when we began
transmitting SSB telephony below 3.600 we were greeted with angry
protestations from the CW o