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Tavaniotis was born in Rostov, USSR, of Greek parents. His father was a well-known doctor. Like many other Greek families Bill and his parents left Russia in the early years of the Communist regime and moved to Istanbul, Turkey, where he began his studies at the famous Robert College.
When Captain Pezopoulos met Bill Tavaniotis the latter suggested that if the 'experimental' transmissions were to continue in the amateurs bands, the callsign should be altered to SX3A. Thousands of successful contacts were made as it was the beginning of sunspot cycle 16, a very good one as old timers will know.
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.
For instance, Tavaniotis ran his own electrical and electronic business called KONSTAV ELECTRIC so he decided to use "KE" as his callsign. As far as I know the following ten amateurs were active in the Athens area in 1937: 1. Takis Coumbias.....................SV1AAA 2. Menelaos Paidousis.................SV1MP 10.
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.
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.
I replied that I was only an employee and could they call back a little later when Mr Tavaniotis himself would be there to answer their questions, and thus managed to get rid of them. When Bill returned I told him about the incident and he left straight away and went to the Ministry of Posts & Telegraphs to see Mr. Stefanos Eleftheriou.
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