Norman Joly and I first met in 1935 when I started working with BillSV1KE as his radio mechanic.Norman was then working for the local agents of RCA selling broadcast receivers.The last time I saw him before the war, was in September 1939.I was still working with Bill and I went to the British School of Archaeology in Athens to deliver a National NC 100 with a Spiderweb all-band antenna.Norman had been recruited to set up a monitoring station for the Press Department of the British Embassy, which had been moved to a building in the grounds of the school.After the end of the war I saw him again in 1948 in the uniform of a Superintendent of Police working in the British Police Mission to Greece.He told me he had obtained a special licence and was back on the air with his pre-war callsign SV1RX.
In 1951 I emigrated to Brazil where I stayed for 17 years and then came to the U.S.A.in 1968, where I have been ever since.We had lost contact with each other and it was five years later that I found Norman'saddress in the American callbook.I wrote to him and in his reply he begged me to come on the air again.Owing to a prolonged family illness which culminated in the loss of my beloved wife it was 1980 before I was in the mood to take up amateur radio once again, with my present callsign N2DOE.
When I went to London in 1984 to spend a few weeks with Norman he told me he had started recording some reminiscences on a tape recorder about the first radio amateurs in Greece, and he asked me if I would like to help.As I was one of them myself I agreed.When I left to return to theU.S.A.he gave me a number of cassettes to transcribe.Although he speaks fluent Greek without any accent at all, he never attended a Greek school and couldn't write the memories.He told me to add anything else I could remember about those pioneering days long gone by.
So, to start from the beginning, let me say that I was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in Turkey, in October 1910, of Greek parents.Although we spoke Greek at home I did not go to a Greek school until I was nine.But I soon moved to the French College where all the lessons were in French and Greek was only taught as a foreign language for two hours every afternoon.
My elder brother had subscribed to a French magazine called 'La Science et La Vie' (Science & Life) and I had become fascinated by a subject called 'Telegrafie sans fil' (Telegraphy without wire).The broadcasting of speech and music had not started yet in that part of the world, though in 1923, a broadcasting station was built in Ankara the capital of Turkey.Broadcast receivers began to appear in the shops, either with headphones or large horn loudspeakers, but we never had one at home.
In 1926 we moved to Athens, Greece, where I went to school.Strangely enough, as I found out later, that was the year when Norman also came to Athens for the first time.At school I met Nasos Coucoulis (later SV1SM and SV1AC) who was also very interested in wireless.I made a crystal receiver and was able to hear the Greek Royal Navy station at Votanikos SXA and the old station at Thiseon in Athens itself, which was still a spark station.There just was nothing else to hear.I acquired aPhilips 'E' type valve and built a grid-leak detector circuit, but all I got was silence.The four volt heater drew one amp and I had been trying to get it going 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 inBoston.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 were the two leading stations in the U.S.A.topping all the achievement tables.But W6AM had a slight advantage; he had bought a site previously belonging to Press Wireless which had 36 rhombics whereas W1FH always operated with his simple Yagi at 60 feet.
