The Dawn of Amateur Radio in the U.K. and Greece: A Personal ViewJoly, Norman F.
History
The Dawn of Amateur Radio in the U.K. and Greece: A Personal View
Joly, Norman F.
Radio broadcasting
Eliascos continued: "My brother Patroclos and I were told that we
would be attached to the section producing the broadcasts in Greek
directed towards occupied Greece, acting as translators, editors and
newsreaders. The Head of this section was George Haniotis the sports
editor of the Athens newspaper 'Elefthero Vima' who used to sign his
sporting articles 'GEO'. Under him was the well-known literary figure
of Dimitri Fotiadis, who died in October 1988.
"When the broadcasts began early in May 1941 I was the principal
newsreader. Later when Haniotis was posted to the Greek Embassy in
Washington D.C. as Press Attache, my brother was appointed Section
Head. At that time the Prime Minister of the Greek government in
exile was Emmanouil Tsouderos, a former Director of the Bank of
Greece. The foreign language broadcasts from Radio Cairo were under
the over-all control of the Political Warfare Executive (P.W.E.) of
the British Ministry of Information. Later, in conjunction with the
Americans, the title of the unit was changed to Psychological Warfare
Branch (P.W.B.)
"Every evening we had two broadcasts, at 7.30 and 10.30 pm, which
went out on the medium wave transmitter of Radio Cairo at Abu Zabal,
run by the E.S.B. (Egyptian State Broadcasting). The transmissions in
eleven foreign languages were also relayed by three short wave
transmitters, two belonging to the telegraph company Cable & Wireless
(callsigns SUV & SUW), and an experimental transmitter of 7.5
kilowatts belonging to a British army signals unit, with the odd
callsign JCJC, operated by young corporal Rowley Shears G8KW, a radio
amateur friend of Norman Joly.
"The Greek broadcasts began in May 1941 and went on to the end of
January 1945.
"During this period many important personalities broadcast from
Studio 3, which was also used by well-known war correspondents of the
B.B.C., the N.B.C. and many other news organisations. The people of
occupied Greece were addressed by Mr Tsouderos, Crown Prince Paul of
Greece, Sofoclis Venizelos, son of the famous Cretan politician
Eleftherios Venizelos who had played a leading role in the political
fortunes of modern Greece, and Panayiotis Kanellopoulos Minister for
War. After the naval mutiny in the port of Alexandria Admiral
Voulgaris spoke to the officers and naval ratings of the Greek Royal
Navy."
Eliascos described in detail the negotiations of the Lebanon
Conference which resulted in the appointment of George Papandreou
(father of Andreas Papandreou who was recently Prime Minister), as the
new Prime Minister of the Coalition government in exile. He can be
seen at the famous R.C.A velocity microphone type 44BX which was used
throughout World War II and many years after. This ribbon type
microphone had a very large and heavy permanent magnet embodied in the
design and must have weighed about 1,000 times more than a modern
electret lapel microphone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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