en
having contacts by this method for about 18 years now even before the
advent of SSB on two metres. I have had contacts with England and
with Moscow to the north-east of Athens. The phenomenon occurs for
three or four months during the summer, and never during the winter.
The ionisation moves very rapidly sometimes--you may be talking to a
station in Malta and he suddenly disappears and a station in
Yugoslavia comes up on the same frequency."

"Every summer" George continued, "we get Troposcatter which allows
communication on all frequencies from VHF to 10 GHz even. This type of
propagation occurs during certain special meteorological conditions,
like high barometric pressure and extreme heat. We sometimes hear
stations in Malta and Sicily with very loud signals."

"In 1966 I built an aerial array consisting of 8 nine-element
Yagis for 2 metres with the axis of rotation pointing to the North
Star enabling me to track the Moon automatically. I was hoping to
make some Moonbounce contacts, but at that time it was very difficult
to construct low noise preamplifiers. After many days and hours of
trying I managed a single brief contact with F8DO in France. Some
time later I heard that Mike Staal K6MYC had heard me in California.

"The funny thing about this aerial array was that it enabled me to
receive television signals from Nigeria on Channel 3 but only when I
raised it up to an elevation of nearly 90 degrees."

Norman: "I understand that Costas Georgiou SV1OE is the only Greek
amateur who has had successful QSOs via Moonbounce."

George: "Yes indeed. But it was many years later, using a low
noise GASFET preamplifier. K1WHS in the U.S.A. has an array
consisting of 48 Yagis which enable him to contact stations with more
modest installations.

"In 1970 a technician from Stanford University came to Athens
because the tracking station they had set up on Mount Pendeli could
not pick the University's satellite, whereas they were getting good
signals from it in Spain. One of the assistants at the station told
the American that he knew an amateur who could pick up signals from
satellites, meaning me. The American, who happened to be an amateur
himself, immediately asked to see me. When he saw my 8 antenna array
he suggested we should use it to try and pick up the University
satellite. I pointed out to him that my array was for 144 MHz whereas
the satellite beacon was transmitting on 136