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I1IP wrote on his card 'I am on the air since 1924 but you are the first SV station I have heard'. And the British listener BRS1183 wrote 'Dear old man, very pleased to report your signals. Are you the only active station in SV? I think those comments speak for themselves." Norman: "Had you not heard about Tavaniotis, who had also emigrated from Russia?" Takis: "No.
What Coumbias didn't know was that by law he was entitled to a proportion of the salvage money, and he never got anything. Another incident involving a small yacht which belonged to a friend of Takis' led to an interesting assignment. The yacht was considered to be not seaworthy any more, and a W/T transmitter it carried was dismantled completely by an electrician who knew nothing about wireless.
I went and saw Mr Eleftheriou at the Ministry and he informed me that there was no way that he could issue me with a transmitting licence, but he thanked me all the same for telling him I had built a transmitter." Takis continued: "I would like you to notice these two QSL cards I received in 1933.
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!
It was you who took me to the basement shack and introduced me. I remember how I gaped when I saw the 150 watt transmitter Bill had built." Takis then described how he had heard a distress signal on his home-made receiver. It was in a language he could not understand so he called his father, who was quite a linguist, to listen.
I gave her some money and she returned nearly two hours later with the liver wrapped in newspaper. When I opened it I saw it was horse liver cooked with corn and it had an awful sour smell. I just could not face it, although I was starving by now." I asked Takis about the shops in Moscow. He said he had found several shops with parts and some made-up receivers in the State owned shops.
In 1931 his family, like many other Greek families in Russia, moved to Athens where Takis built a 4-valve transmitter with which he was very active on 40 and 20 metre CW using the callsign SV1AAA. I frequently operated his station myself and when I asked him why he had chosen that particular callsign he gave me what proved to be a truly prophetic answer.
I asked Takis if he had done any transmitting from home. "We amateurs of foreign origin were not allowed to own transmitters but we could operate the club station under close supervision by the Party member who was always present. My own SWL callsign was RK-1136 as you can see from the QSL card I received from EU5DN in 1929.
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.
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