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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.
And so it came about that Eleftheriou who knew all about our activity in the amateur bands issued the first three licences to SV1KE, SV1CA and SV1NK 'to carry out experimental transmissions relating to the study of propagation on the short waves'. He knew that he had every right to do this as Greece was a signatory to the international telecommunication treaties.
Then there was a shop in a basement next door, Konstav Electric, owned by 'Bill' Tavaniotis SV1KE. A wide range of components were also stocked by the Raytheon agent, Nick Katselis SV1NK. "I obtained some plug-in forms and wound the coils carefully according to the instructions but unfortunately the receiver didn't work very well, if at all.
In actual fact this is what happened: legislation was enacted 40 years later and the callsign SV1AAA was officially allocated to Nikita Venizelos after 54 years had elapsed! The recipients of these three licences were Costas 'Bill' Tavaniotis SV1KE, Aghis Cazazis SV1CA and Nikos Katselis SV1NK. As there were no relevant regulations the choice of callsign was left to the individual operators.
If anyone reading this has a QSL card from SX3A it would be appreciated if he would donate it to the Technical Museum in Greece." The text which follows was written by Pol N2DOE of Bergenfield NJ. Norman Joly and I first met in 1935 when I started working with Bill SV1KE as his radio mechanic. Norman was then working for the local agents of RCA selling broadcast receivers.
There I met several amateurs serving with the British forces, and one of them gave me a small military transmitter, so I was able to come on the air again with my old callsign of SV1AZ. There is no doubt that the most active and best known amateur in Greece before World War II was 'Bill' SV1KE. He was active on 20 and 10 metres on AM phone and CW, using his famous McElroy 'bug' to good advantage.
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