Historical information
This antenna was used between 1989 and 1990 to help receive the daily news service in the Greek language directly from Athens, Greece.
At the time, news from Greece for the Greek people in Australia were arriving in Melbourne a week late, on newspapers from Athens sent through air-mail. These newspapers were displayed at Salapatas and Carras newsagents at Lonsdale street in Melbourne.
One thing that was a problem for this service was that the news came at least 7 days late.
Using the Shortwave Antenna we could get the latest news from Athens on shortwave radio directly and within an hour these news were recorded on a cassette tape and taken to the Tricom Group P.L. offices in Melbourne (1155 Malvern Road, Malvern 3144). The tape was loaded onto a system which allowed people to call a local phone number and listen to the latest news with a cost of a local call, or a little bit more.
As this was prior to the Internet being established around the globe, it was the fastest news service directly from Greece, in the Greek language. It was used for a span of about 12 months, until Tricom closed down their dial-in services, sometime in 1990.
The service was captured and loaded onto the system by Iakovos Garivaldis, then an employee of the Tricom Group which was a subsidiary of Southern Cross TV.
Significance
The Primary significance of this object is of its historical value, social and informative value for the first generation of Greeks in Victoria
Physical description
"World Tuner AT4 SW" antenna with a 920mm fully extended aerial, a tuned circuit and two transistors to prevent loading of the antenna and boost signal output. It is made of plastic, black in colour with the aerial being made of steel.
The signals picked up by the antenna are fed via a 15pF ceramic capacitor to a tuned circuit consisting of either VC1a or VC1b and either L1, L2, L3 or L4. The slider switch S1 selects the band to be tuned. The band range is normally from 3 to 30MHz.
When S1 is in position A, L1 and VC1a are selected and the antenna can be tuned from 3-9MHz. Similarly positions B, C, and D select higher frequencies up to 30MHz.
It was purchased by Iakovos Garivaldis for this use for $119.
Inscriptions & markings
WORLD TUNER AT4 SW
"Amplituned" Shortwave Antenna
