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. (No electronic keyers and no 15 metre band in those
years).
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. Later he went to London where he first came into
contact with radio amateurs, while studying Electrical Engineering.
After that he went to Belgium.
Bill had a knack of picking up languages and when I met him in
Athens in the early thirties he spoke at least seven to my knowledge:
Russian, Greek, English, French, Italian, Turkish and German. His
pronunciation in all them was excellent. On one occasion at a party
in the Athens suburb of Palaio Psyhico one of the guests was an
amateur from Italy who spoke no English, so Bill interpreted from that
language into Italian for his benefit. He then translated what the
Italian had said into English for the others. But suddenly their
faces went blank. Quite unconsciously Bill had translated the
Italian's remarks into Turkish! Many years later Bill was employed at
the United Nations in New York as a simultaneous translator. In
October 1946 Bill and his wife Artemis visited Charles Mellen W1FH in
Boston for an 'eyeball' after more than ten years of QSOs over the
air, with the exception of the war years of course. Chas photographed
Bill outside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bill
photographed Mary (Chas' xyl), Chas and Artemis standing in front of
the W1FH tower.
The first transmitter he built can be seen in the photo taken from
the book GREEK BROADCASTING published by Radio Karayianni in 1952.
His shack was in the basement workshop at 17a, Bucharest Street in
Athens, an address which became known world-wide as the first QSL
bureau for Greece.
The gang of enthusiasts who met at Bill's included Nasos Coucoulis
SV1SM, Aghis Cazazis SV1CA, Nick Katselis SV1NK, Mikes Paidousi SV1MP,
Pol Psomiadis SV1AZ (now N2DOE) and the writer of these memoirs,
SV1RX. Of course all visiting amateurs made a beeline for the shack
in the basement. As most of our contacts were with the U.S.A. we
were usually up most of the night because of the 7-hour difference
with Eastern Standard Time. None of us had motor-cars and public
transport was not available during the night hours so we all got
plenty of exercise walking back to our respective houses.
Bill was closely in touch with two men who played a very important
role in the development of amateur radio in Greece. I am referring to
Stefanos Eleftheriou who was Section Head for Telecommunications at
the Ministry (Greek initials T.T.T.)., and to Captain Kyriakos
Pezopoulos, Director of D.R.Y.N. (Greek initials for Directorate of
the Wireless Service of the Navy). The long wave spark transmitter at
Votanikos, a suburb of Athens, (callsign SXA) had been built by the
Marconi company before World
(Bill Tavaniotis died of cancer in 1948.)