a stiff copper wire and supported the down-lead on two
enormous bell insulators as used on telegraph poles. I had to smash a
corner of my bedroom window to bring the wire in. I had bought a
large knife switch which could be turned over to connect the aerial to
ground. I was afraid the large flat top of the aerial would attract
thunderbolts. When I finally connected the aerial to the receiver I
heard ABSOLUTELY NOTHING."

I asked him how he tuned the receiver. He said he had put many
taps on the coil and he twisted his antenna to these taps trying
various combinations with the tuning capacitor.

"All I heard was this breathing noise. I learned later that it
was the 'carrier wave' of a broadcasting station without modulation,
but I didn't know what that meant. As my friends also heard the same
noise I was convinced my receiver was working. We soon found out that
the long wave transmitter at Ankara, the capital of Turkey was making
test transmissions without modulation. Ankara was one of the first
broadcasting stations in that part of the world."

Norman: "Regeneration should have produced a whistle."

Takis: "Yes, indeed. And in a peculiar way. When I approached
the receiver my hand produced the whistle."

Norman: "Hand capacity effect."

Takis: "And foot capacity effect as well! When I approached my
knee to the metal leg of the work-bench I would lose the station I had
been listening to." He said the tuning capacitor he had made was
obviously too small and he had to alter the taps on the coil
continuously. About three o'clock in the morning during a cold winter
night he heard a new sound--the breathing (carrier) noise and a sort
of regular ticking. He later found out that it was the new
broadcasting station in Vienna, Austria, which transmitted the sound
of a metronome throughout the night. This would have been about 1926.

I asked Takis about school. "In spite of the late nights
listening I never missed a day at school. My father was the Chairman
of the School Committee and I couldn't let him down. But I had to earn
some pocket money to pay for the bits a pieces I needed. Particularly
a decent pair of headphones; I had to hold the army headphone to me
ear with one hand which gave me pins and needles. For some years I
had kept goldfish and pigeons, so I sold them. A friend of mine had
gone to sea as a cadet and his ship went abroad, so I asked him to get
me a pair of h