My name is Demetre Valaris, I am 53 years old and I live in Athens, the city under the Acropolis, located in Greece, the country of the gods and civilization. I am married to Gillian and we have a lovely 18 year old daughter called Sophie (our harmonic and hopefully a future Radio Amateur).

I have been professionally involved in Information Technology since 1991, studied it for the first time in 1974 (using a telex machine as a remote terminal and also punch cards) and as a hobby since 1981 (using at first a ZX-81 home computer). I am also a part time teacher of English language and I love using computers in the class.

Click here to join E.P.R.G.

and also Member of pactor_packet Group
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My favourite Hobby is Amateur Radio and I love using computers with it. I particularly enjoy operating SSTV (Slow Scan TeleVision) and DIGITAL modes mostly, but I also love taking my radios up on the mountains and operate while I walk or cycle. I try to walk while doing my hobby as much as I can. I was first licensed in 1983 (out of love for operating SSTV really), having been an SWL for many years before (1970-1983). I still enjoy listening to Shortwave AM broadcasters, but not very often nowadays. I built my first CRYSTAL DETECTOR in 1967, using a PBS crystal stone as an AM detector and a cat's whisker made from the thin [E] string of my guitar. I was 12 years old then. My first homemade Medium Waves AM transmitter (for EXPERIMENTAL and EDUCATIONAL purposes only) was built soon after this. I used an 6F6 tube as a VFO and an 6L6 tube as a final. This happened after having burned a 2 transistor mini transmitter because my soldering iron was 100 Watts. Valves do not get burnt by a 100 watts iron!!! Later I used other tubes as finals, such as 807, 6146, 811 and 813. All this happened on and off between 1968 and 1975. Those were the days!!!

My ancestors had developed an amazing communication system. They used fire signals during the night and smoke or audio signals during the day to send messages from city to city or from remote places back to their homeland, much earlier than 1200 B.C. For this reason they had built a whole network of manned telecommunications towers (called Fryktories) on the mountain tops of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea and on many mountain tops of the Greek Mainland. For example, in the Trojan war, 1200 B.C., they used this system to notify their cities back home that they had won the war. They used this communication system in a similar way we use our VHF/UHF repeaters today. Our National Telecommunications Company (OTE) has installed many microwave links to link the remote cities, right next to where our ancestors had built their own telecommunications towers.

My ancestors were very clever people.

The word "TELE" the first part ot telecommunications, is a Greek word and it means "FAR AWAY".

Hydraulic Telegraph

At first they used simple fire signals in order to exchange messages and later they thought of the hydraulic telegraph made by Aeneas in order to exchange more sophisticated messages. Still they could only exchange a few set messages, more than the first system could, but nevertheless a definite number of messages. They could only send as many messages as the hydraulic telegraph could take on it, and they had to be prearranged beforehand.

Optical Telegraph

Later they thought of the optical telegraph where they separated the Greek alphabet in 5 groups of letters and each group had 5 letters except for the last one that had only 4 (the Greek alphabet has only 24 letters). This way they could exchange any kind of message they wanted because with this system they could actually send letters and not prearranged messages. This system is the true ancestor of the MORSE CODE that we still use today. In the optical telegraph they used twin telecommunications towers at each end with 5 torches on each side of the station. The torches on the left side were used to indicate which group of letters they where about to send and the torches on the right to indicate which actual letter of the group they were sending. So if they wanted to send the letter "I" they lit 2 torches on the left tower (letter "I" was in the 2nd group) and 4 torches on the right towers (the letter "I" was the 4th letter of the 2nd group). They also used double pipes, just like binoculars without lenses, through which they could see only one side of the remote tower through each pipe, i.e. through the left pipe they could see the one tower of the remote station and through the right pipe the second tower of the same remote station. As you can understand the bigger the separation between the 2 towers of each optical telegraph station, the longer the communication range would be. This range was usually 20 - 30 kilometres but sometimes about 100 kilometres because the nights in Greece are usually very clear.

When they wanted to send encrypted messages they just changed the letter groups and or the number of the groups. Of course both ends should know which combinations they were using.

The Byzantines

* The information on the "Telecommunications in Ancient Greece" is based in the work of Christos D. Lazos, a very good Greek historian. Christos D. Lazos has written a great book, in Greek Language, under the title "Telecommunications of the Ancient Greeks". This book is in Greek and is worth reading.

I have always been fond of operating with portable radios. I feel that portable operation and QRP are made for each other. Furthermore even today I enjoy constructing radios and most of all QRP radios. I am a member of the G-QRP CLUB and my member number is 3125. I went on the air for the first time as a licensed Radio Amateur in 1983 using QRP Homebrew equipment. This was a 5 Watts, 1.8-30 MHZ SSB transmitter using the VFO of my Yaesu FRG-7700 radio receiver for transmitter frequency generation and the receiver itself for reception.

Alas I have not kept the homemade QRP transmitter and FRG-7700 receiver.

Later I built a 2 element Cubical QUAD and I worked all the continents with CW, SSB, RTTY and SSTV. Unfortunatelly I took my QUAD antenna down since I moved QTH.

Numerous QRP rigs have also been built by myself and one of these is the DSB-80 a kit and the SEVERN TRANSCEIVER from SPRAT of the G-QRP club. Infact I made a dual band (40/20) DSB/CW SEVERN QRP transceiver, a mix of these two nice designs. I built this in 1987 and had a lot of nice 2 way QRP QSOS with it especially when I was on my holidays in the Greek Islands of the Aegean Sea and also for my early portable operations before 1990. Follow this link to have a look at it.

My Mizuho

I own a MIZUHO MX-14S portable HF 2 watts SSB/CW HT, with it's 1.4 meter whip. I have been using it for a long time in my mountain treks. In the past I always took it with me on my holidays. I started operating as an HF Walking Portable Station with this HF (20 meter) Handie Talkie in January 1990. No one was calling this kind of operation Pedestrian Mobile /PM then. I was just signing as SV1UY/P, i.e. SV1UY Portable. You can follow this link to see an older picture of myself using my trusted MIZUHO MX-14S near the top of Mt. Ymittos. You can also see the 4 meter white cable which was used as a counterpoise.

My FT-817

Now I am the proud owner of a YAESU FT-817 (a great HF+6m+2m+70cm battery operated 5 Watts little transceiver) with an MP-1 all band manual screwdriver antenna and an ATX 80-6 mini telescopic antenna, I take this radio everywhere. You can follow this link to see me and my daughter Sophie operating pedestrian mobile with the FT-817 and ATX antenna on the lower part of Mt. Ymittos near our home in Athens.

My RACAL PRM4031

Recently I got another nice radio for my backpacking adventures. It is the RACAL PRM4031, a 0.5-30 MHZ, 10 watts manpack ex-military radio of the British Army, with it's own 2.5 meter whip and built in manual ATU. This one weighs around 8.5 Kgr, backpack, antenna, radials, extra battery, cw key and speaker mike included. You can click on the following links to see me operating as a pedestrian mobile station on Mt. Ymittos and on the island of Aegina. Up to now it has taken my signals as far as ZL-land (New Zealand) and VK-land (Australia), and of course all over Europe.

I have also done a lot of NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave) QSOS with it on 40 meters by bending the whip antenna towards the ground. This is the best propagation mode for having HF QSOs within Greece. Bending the antenna towards the ground and connecting a 3 meter or longer radial at the ground terminal of the radio, makes the radiation angle of the radio signals higher towards the sky, hence allowing stronger signals to be transmitted towards the sky and therefore shortening the skip. which is highly desirable for QSOs over shorter distances, i.e. within the boundaries of a country.

Counterpoise kit by Dale-W8ABZ

For all these vertical portable antennas I use with my portable radios, whether they are the ATX or MP-1 or any other vertical whip, I need some sort of radial/counterpoise, to play the role of the vertical dipole's missing half. Vertical antennas are really assymetric vertical dipoles, so the missing half is important for their efficient operation.
Here is a Radial/Counterpoise constructional article with full details and pictures that Dale-W8ABZ sent me and asked me to include it here so that others may benefit from it. This kit is made from 6 pieces of speaker or any multicore 1.5 mm square insulated wire, each wire having a small socket at both ends similar to banana sockets and plugs. By connecting together 2 or more pieces at a time, you have the counterpoise you need for each amateur band. Using various combinations of these 6 pieces one could cover all Amateur bands between 80 and 6 meters, including most of the International Shortwave Broadcaster Bands. The good idea about this article is that one does not need to carry 9 pieces of wire and also we only need 2 pieces at maximum for each Amateur Band, except 80m where we use all six wires, and this is making a robust counterpoise system with one or two pieces being used per band from 40-6 m.

I built 3 of these kits on 15 May 2001 and tested them in all bands. Sorry folks I forgot to test 80 meters but it should work. My ATX, using my FT-817, tuned straight away even on 15 meters where I have always had problems getting a low SWR. I also used it with my MP-1 and FT-817 by laying the radial on one of the rocks of the breakwater in Vayia-Aegina on Sunday 20 May 2001, when I had a QSO with Max ZL1BK/PM from Auckland. I even used it with the 8 foot whip and built in ATU that my RACAL PRM-4031 has as a standard accessory, when I had a QSO with Jim VK2GJM in Sydney.

On 28 February 2001 at 06.25z I contacted ZL1BK/PM on 14,348 KHZ via the LONG PATH using CW while I was trekking on the slopes of Mt. Ymittos and I also spoke to him at 06.45z on 14,280 KHZ using SSB. We were both operating as Pedestrian Mobiles (/PM) with very short antennas and only 5 watts so these QSOs have been recognized as a WORLD RECORD since we covered about 22533 kilometers (22593 by other calculations) via the LONG PATH. This has been published by many leading Ham Radio Magazines World Wide (QST, RadCom, SPRAT, Radio Telecommuinications Magazine, SVNEWS, etc.) and also by HFpack which only recognised this distance as 17,467 kms, the SHORTPATH distance of our 22,533 kms LONGPATH QSOs, but since they had set the rules before our QSOs I can't complain. Nevertheless, noone has ever managed to break even the 17467 kms record up to now. 2 English Amateurs tried to fake QSOs between New Zealand and the UK in December 2007, but they were discovered by HFPACK and disqualified. Check HFpack'S Hall of Fame and look for Failures and Disqualifications near the bottom before Guidlines for Qualification in HFpack Hall of Fame.

We used the well known propagation technique called CHORDAL-HOP.

Follow the next link to see the QSL CARDS we exchanged for the 2 World Record Breaking QSOS.

These were my first RECORD BREAKING HF 2 way Portable to Portable QSOs with very short antennas and QRP power.

I also contacted Max ZL1BK/PM on 25 February 2001, 4 March 2001 and 11 March 2001 in other bands by using the same rig and antenna. He was also using an FT-817 at 5 watts and a short handheld vertical antenna very similar to mine.

My best DX with my FT-817 and W3FF's 9 band handheld dipole

On 8 April 2001 at 06.05z I contacted again Max ZL1BK/PM on 21.437 KHZ while I was walking on Mt. Ymittos and then we QSYed down to 18,157 KHZ where we had a 30 minute long SSB QSO with 5-8 reports at both ends. We both used homemade dipoles and the well known CHORDAL-HOP mode over the LONG PATH. We spanned again a distance of 22,533 kilometers over the LONGPATH. I exploited the sloping ground of the mountain with my horizontal dipole facing New Zealand over the LONG PATH with radiation angles lower than 10 degrees while Max ZL1BK was right next to the seawater in the north island of New Zealand using his dipole in a SLOPER configuration and using the sea water as a super reflector to enchance his low angles of radiation. I must mention that my half sized portable dipole was made and sent to me all the way from Northern California from my good friend Budd W3FF, now famous for his walking portable antenna The Buddipole. I have contacted Max ZL1BK several times after 8 April 2001.

*** On 6 May 2001 at 05.52z I contacted W3FF/PM while using his dipole and also had QSOs with ZL1BK/M and others.

My best DX with my RACAL PRM4031 and its own 2.5 meter whip

On 1 July 2001 at 04.55z I contacted again ZL1BK/PM on 14,345 KHZ using SSB while I was trekking on Mt. Pilion. W3FF/PM was on frequency too. I was using my RACAL PRM4031 with its 2.5 meter whip without any radials and I had the radio in its backpack case and over my shoulders. Again we used propagation mode called CHORDAL-HOP. Signals were 5-1 but the frequency was so clear that we had a 40 minute QSO. Budd W3FF/PM could not hear me very well though. Click here to see a picture of myself in QSO with ZL1BK/PM, W3FF/PM on Mt. Pilion.

My Sunday Sked

Until the end of 2002 we used to meet nearly every Sunday morning at 05.00z on 14,342.5 KHZ, at 05.30z on 18,157 KHZ and sometimes at 06.00z on 21,437 KHZ. After 06.00z I used to stay on 21,437 KHZ or 28,337 KHZ till about 08.15z while I was walking on Mt. Ymittos and I usually talked with my good friends G4MSF, G0EHX, SV1VN, ZL1BK, W3FF and many others from the USA, VK, JAPAN, EUROPE and I was even heard as far as FIJI by Raffy VK2RF operating as 3D2RS with his FT-817 and ATX (a 1.6 meter tuned whip) antenna. Many americans were curious to see if we were really telling the truth so they were always there eavesdropping (hi hi hi) every single Sunday morning. They were dying to break our World Record, but as far as I know noone has ever managed to break it up to now.

At 08.15z I used to QSY to 7,088 KHZ to talk to the Greek Emergency Net.

Of course nowadays with propagation changes I do not get up that early any more but I still try to monitor 14.330 KHZ and 7.088 KHZ, the EPRG calling frequencies most Sundays from 09.00 GMT until late and also some week days. I also monitor 145.425 KHZ/88.5 HZ CTCSS when I am at home, usually every evening. When I walk to the mountain I usually take my Kenwood TH-D7 to send APRS Beacons every 5 minutes to show my exact location. You can follow my trek by clicking here. You can send an APRS SMS to SV1UY-7 to arrange a sked if you wish. I also use APRS as an alert mechanism when I am on the mountain, to alert my friends that I am QRV for an HF Portable QSO.

If you are interested in portable HF radio I would love to hear from you in order to have a 2 way HF portable QSO. You can just call me on 7.088 KHZ, 14.330 KHZ on SSB/CW or e-mail me for a sked if you wish. If you are near Athens call me on 145.425 KHZ/88.5 HZ CTCSS which I monitor every night after 22.00 local time or whenever I am in the shack. I also monitor RU1 Mt. Ymittos Repeater when I drive and operate APRS sending APRS Beacons nearly every 2 minutes with my TM-D700 when I am in my car, so you can click here to see where I have just been driving. You can also send an APRS SMS to SV1UY-9 when I am in my car.

European Portable Radio Group

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My RTTY

My RTTY setup was, for a long time, a Homemade Terminal Unit with a Square Matrix of 81 red leds CROSS TUNING INDICATOR connected to it for easy RTTY tuning, using the Sinclair ZX81 Home Computer with RITTY, an RTTY program from G4IDE in an EPROM. I built this system in 1984 and had many happy QSOs with it.

Later I used a Sinclair SPECTRUM Home Computer with the same Terminal Unit but using RITTY-9, the latest RTTY program of it's time from G4IDE.

Today I use my trusted PTC-IIe with Plusterm or NcWinPTC for windows for my RTTY activities.

For SSTV (this is the main reason why I became a licensed radio amateur) I used a homemade 128 line RAM converter with 3 BW memories, designed by G3WCY/G4ENA for the members of BATC and built by myself. This unit used 80 chips and supported the LINE SEQUENTIAL COLOUR TX/RX MODE as well as the BW mode. I used a PHILIPS CCTV BW Camera to capture the pictures and my SPECTRUM with a homemade SSTV Interface as a CAPTION SSTV MACHINE for writing my CQ calls etc. I built this converter in 1985 and used it for many years.

Today I use my PTC-IIe with Jvcomm32 for Windows, ChromaPix (for SoundCard Analogue SSTV, best SSTV program ever), MMSSTV (for SounCard NarrowBand SSTV), EasyPAL (for SoundCard DIGITAL SSTV) and also the VC-H1 SSTV TX/RX from Kenwood when I am out and about operating portable.

Click on My Live SSTV CAM to see what is my FT-1000MP receiving right now. Check the time that the top picture has been received in order to understand if my SSTV Receiving Station is online.

Here is a picture of my shack. You are invited to come in for a virtual visit.

Nowadays I use an FT-1000MP at home with a Roof DELTA LOOP antenna, using an Automatic ATU for feeding it. This antenna is very good in the higher bands (40-10m) but a compromise antenna for 80 and 160 meters.

I have worked more than 100 countries without even trying (mostly using QRP), but I do not count them anymore because I am not at all interested in collecting DX awards. I love the technical part of amateur radio rather than award hunting. Do not get me wrong, I love DX but I am not interested in awards.

Here are some of the things I like doing, along with some links about them:
ANTENNA, HF MOBILE, SSTV, PACKET RADIO, HF DIGITAL MODES, (AMTOR - PACTOR 1 - PACTOR 2), PSK31, RTTY, HELLSCHREIBER, Radio Wave Propagation Prediction and of course TCP/IP over RADIO.

For my HF/VHF/UHF mobile operating I first used a GCR-1000 (a Greek made 25 watt output HF radio) but now I use a Yaesu FT-100 with an ATAS-100, a Diamond HF mobile antenna or a SIRIO monobander 80 meter HF mobile. I have also used an (80-10 meter) PRO-AM HF mobile, but it is very big. I would like to get a hold on an original Screwdriver HF antenna some day.

I also use a Kenwood TMD-700 for APRS and Voice Communications when I drive and if you like to track me while I drive please click here to see my SV1UY-8 car orhere to see my SV1UY-9 car .

If you want to see where I have been during the last 24 hours then click here for my SV1UY-8 car or here for my SV1UY-9 car.

I love the idea of HF PACTOR<===>VHF/UHF AX25 GATEWAYS which I think brings radio hams closer to each other and after all what is ham radio all about? It is certainly about interactive communicating and international friendship. I have got a spare PTC-II from SCS and I hope to have my own HF PACTOR GATEWAY ready on 40/30/20m some time in the very near future, time - and other obligations - permitting of course (I have not dropped this idea yet).

I have also been using a PTC-IIe at home since August 1999 and I find it the best HF/VHF DIGITAL MODES CONTROLLER, after having used a Homemade PACTOR 1 Terminal Unit a KAM, KAM PLUS and other homemade setups for many years. It allows you to operate RTTY, CW, AMTOR, PACTOR 1 & 2, PSK31, 300/1k2/2k4/9k6 BPS PACKET, WEFAX, NAVTEX and SSTV (did I forget anything?) in a very efficient way and without clogging your PENTIUM down to a halt.

Do not forget that packet radio and generally DIGITAL communications are not only MAIL or BULLETING FORWARDING as many PBBS and PACTOR MBO sysops like to have you believe. There are plenty of other applications out there, such as FILE TRANSFER, APRS, QSOing, CONVERSing with many radio hams simultaneously, DX-CLUSTER, discussions over MAILING LISTS, visiting remote amateur networks, playing games, e-mail and many other TCP/IP and plain AX25 applications.

These days I hang around 14.109,5 (DIAL QRG) Mark/Space 1600/1400 HZ, which is 14.111 KHZ (CENTER QRG) for PACTOR 3 QSOs so if you are QRV on PACTOR 1/2 or 3, please give me a call.

Atari Portfolio (English) | Olivetti Quaderno (English) | HP200LX (English)
Atari Portfolio   (Greek) | Olivetti Quaderno   (Greek) | HP200LX   (Greek)

Here you can find the latest DOMAIN.TXT and see how many Radio Amateurs are involved with TCP/IP over Radio in Greece.

You can easily contact me via e-mail or via AX25 PBBS packet radio mail. Please do not phone me. Respect my personal life. Remember this is ONLY A HOBBY for me.

You can e-mail me clicking here
My packet radio address is SV1UY@SV1UY.ATH.GRC.EU
Please use Latin plain text or Greek characters Codepage-437.

Connect to ATHnet's WEBSERVER

Connect to ATHnet's WEBCONVERS

Telnet ATHnet's GATEWAY

*** Type "CONV" to join our CONVERS

When you are in the CONVERS SERVER (you may have to ENABLE LOCAL ECHO if you use the WINDOWS TELNET CLIENT or Hyperterm), type /n callsign and you will go to channel 154 to have a QSO with SV Radio Amateurs. Please use your CALLSIGN to logon. You will probably find me there from Monday - Friday after 22.00 Athens time and anytime during the weekend.

BETTER still!

Download and install TTYlink, a very nice FREEWARE TTYlink and TELNET CLIENT program that has been made by PA3AZK especially for radio amateur Windows (W95, W98, WNT, Win2000, WinME and WinXP) computers. It has a one line buffer at the bottom of the screen where you can type/edit your lines before you send them to the CONVERS, the DX-CLUSTER or the MailBox/GATEWAY you are connected to. This is very good because it does not mix the incoming with the outgoing lines and you always see what you are typing before sending it.

If you are a LINUX user of you use JNOS in DOS, Linux or Windows, then you have no problems with the CONVERS. It is only the Windows TELNET client program that has a terrible terminal emulation which makes things difficult for you.

If you have problems using this SERVER please e-mail SV1UY, the administrator of this system.

Connect to G4MSF Keith's WEB PAGES for his 1940's portable radios collection

AC6V - AMATEUR RADIO AND DX REFERENCE GUIDE

Athens 11 February 2009
73 de SV1UY
e-mail: sv1uy AT yahoo.com

Tele-Communications in Ancient Greece
European Portable Radio Group | My Live SSTV CAM | My APRS IGATE (Statistics Page)
Connect to ATHnet's WEB SERVER | Connect to ATHnet's WEBCONVERS
My Favourite Hobby | My Portable QRP | My Best DX | My RTTY | My SSTV | My PACTOR-DigiModes | My Shack | My Mobile
My Portable PACKET | ATHnet-AMPRnet | SV IP Addresses | JNOS-Kit | ATHnet's LINKS | OTHER HAM links
TCP/IP Radio tutor in Greek-437 | TCP/IP tutorial in Greek-437 | NOS-FAQ in Greek-437
APRS-Where am I/have been driving? (SV1UY-9) or (SV1UY-8) | APRS-Where am I/have been walking/cycling/working (SV1UY-7)?
Weather DATA at SV1UY-2 (in my QTH)