"Looking ahead still further and assuming that the wireless will supplement the wire line link, there is no reason why a simultaneous broadcast of something of fundamental importance to the whole civilised world should not take place some time in the future."In a book entitled "Radio Goes to War" published by Faber & Faber in 1943, Charles J.Rolo wrote,"Radio went to war on five continents shortly after the Nazi Party came to power in Germany.In nine years it has been streamlined from a crude propaganda bludgeon into the most powerful single instrument of political warfare the world has ever known.Spreading with the speed of light, it carries the human voice seven times round the globe in one second.When Hitler makes a speech in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, listeners in America and the whole world hear his words by short wave even before his own immediate audience hears them.Radio speaks in all tongues to all classes.All pervasive, it penetrates beyond national frontiers, spans the walls of censorship that bar the way to the written word, and seeps throughthe fine net of the Gestapo.It reaches the illiterate and the informed, the young and the old, the civilian and the soldier in the front line, the policy makers and the inarticulate masses.So great is the importance of radio to- day that the seizure of a defeated nation's transmitters has become one of the primary spoils of war."In Greece, broadcasting was started in the northern city of Thessaloniki (Salonica) by the pioneer of Balkan broadcasting Christos Tsingeridis, in 1928.A museum in that city tells the full story of the first broadcasting station in the whole of the Balkans.
Broadcasting in the capital, Athens, started on March 25th 1938 when a second-hand 15 kW Telefunken transmitter was put into operation in the suburb of Liosia.The centre-fed T antenna was supported between two pylons of 85 metres (279 feet).In 1944 when the German army was pulling out of Athens they tried to blow the the pylons up but one of them remained standing at a crazy angle, because one of the explosive charges had been placed incorrectly.
2.Avlis `The Voice of Hellas'.
The 5th Programme of the Greek broadcasting service (Elliniki Radiophonia) is transmitted from the short wave transmitting centre at Avlis, about 70 kilometres north of Athens.The station was put into service in 1972 and has two 100KW Marconi short wave transmitters and a veritable forest of antennas covering 1,100 acres, arranged in three lines to cover the desired directions, as can be seen on the great circle map.The pylons supporting the 6 MHz arrays are truly impressive at 328 feet.Each line has eight separate antennas for the 6, 7, 9, 11, 15, 17 and 21 MHz broadcasting bands.
Each antenna consists of two curtains with a total of 8 horizontal dipoles.The dipoles are all fed by open wire feeders which can be remotely switched to enable radiation in two directions 180 degrees apart.There are also three curtains for the 11 metre band (26 MHz) which may be put into service during sunspot cycle 22 if the M.U.F.allows it.
For transmissions to neighbouring countries like Cyprus, Turkey, the Balkans and the countries of the Middle East, there are two rotatable log periodic antennas with a high angle of vertical radiation (45 degrees) and awide angle of 32 degrees in the horizontal plane.
The remotely controlled switching centre allows each of the two transmitters to be connected to any one of the 23 antennas.Electromechanical protection circuits ensure that a transmitter can only be connected to an antenna that is tuned to the same frequency.The change of antennas and transmitting frequencies is made during the ten-minute interval between programmes, which always begin on the hour, preceded by the now familiar signature tune of a shepherd playing his flute with the tinkling of sheep-bells in the background, recorded in 1936, followed by the Greek National Anthem.
The special programmes of news and features originate in the broadcasting headquarters in Athens and go on the air throughout the 24 hours of the day in Greek, English and many foreign languages.Reports of reception are welcome and should be addressed to K.E.B.A., Avlis, Greece.(The Greek initials stand for short wave transmitting centre.)But Avlis was `in the news' long before the Greek broadcasting service decided to install its short wave transmitters there.In ancient times a great fleet of ships had been assembled in the harbour there, ready to set sail for Troy, following the abduction of the beautiful Helen of Sparta by Paris, the young Prince of Troy.But there had been no wind for many weeks, and the sea was dead calm.
Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, who had himself contributed over 100 ships to the fleet, decided to consult his Seer.As was the custom, the Seer slaughtered a young lamb and scrutinised its entrails.He then announced that the wind would come up if Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia on the Altar of Sacrifice.King Agamemnon despatched a messenger to Mycenae (no VHF repeater being available in those days) to tell his wife Queen Klitemnestra to send their daughter Iphigenia to Avlis (Aulis).The King said he was planning to marry her off to Achilles, the most eligible bachelor of the day.When poor Iphigenia arrived she was quickly placed on the Sacrificial Altar - and had her pretty throat slit.
However, there seems to be another version to the end of the story.Just before the human sacrifice was due to be made Artemis (Diana, the famous Goddess of Hunting) sent a small deer which was placed on thealtar instead of the girl.Iphigenia was secretly spirited away to Taurida, in northern Greece, and put in charge of Diana's temple there.
(This story is the subject of a well-known classical Greek play.) Historical note on the Marconi-Stille steel tape recording machine.
