sat-installations

University of Astronomics

(Thessaloniki)

This system has been made in the start 90's period. A professor,has shown an interest in installing a system for monitoring the stars , but the system has been fully completed for TVRO use. I am not sure if the system has been used for astrophysical reasons but the LNB are still the TVRO as used before

FM 100-100.5-101

(Thessaloniki)

One of the oldest installations with the 'public sector ' i made. There is also a small anecdote with the story of this installation. During 1988 i have recorded several audio cassettes from several satellite radio stations and once I have given a sample to the president of the municipality radio station . It was also the time that Deutsche Welle and BBC were transmitting their greek programs also via satellite.

A little afterwards ( 1 month?) they shown an interest for a 3 meter system. The funniest is that the same night the system has been installed , a pirate TV transmission with satellite TV Programs has been transmitted from an unknown point , but surely from a further point closer to Hortiatis , and next day the local authorities were supposed that this transmission was originated from FM100 system !

The system was then used primarily to relay BBC and Deutsche Welle though more recently its relay use has been declined

The headquarters of FM 100 are located in the Angelaki street , the also called stations street . The rear part of these buildings belong to Hellexpo, the main exhibitions super hall of Thessaloniki and still the larget exhibitions hall in Greece( about 15000 sqm) with more than 15 exhibitions every year . .

And about the 3 m antenna we used: Its design is 8 pieces of aluminum abt 1,5 mm thick

Quite later Municipality radio station left the building and toook everything into their TV headquarters nearby the White Tower. The bulding is used now by a supermarket chain store

University of Mathematics

(Thessaloniki)

The second system installed for the university , after an interest of a professor of Mathematics, though the system and its installation was very simple,its maintenance was much of headaching and requirements of this professor and caused me to lose some important equipment.

Antenna is barely shown as is it several meters far from the edge

Municipality of Ptolemaida

This was the second municipality project.After the success of the system of Thessaloniki several others cities with mayors of the same political party as Mr Kouvelas, Thessaloniki's mayor, (ie New Democracy party which was the major opposition party of that time) , shown nearly immediate interest in putting a TVRO relay system.

System has been installed 3 months after the system of Thessaloniki. That installation was not without incidents between them and the police, as it happened with the municipality of Thessaloniki and police for the installation of the radio station . It has been rumored that the same police force used in Thessaloniki ( which came from Athens ) was also in force in Ptolemaida.About 400 persons of the force have been used ...

The system has been at start installed in the mayor's building abt 2 km ouside the city. and included 3 TVRO dishes with 2x 3m dishes and one 1.8 m dish and a full relay system with 5 Uniden TVRo receivers , 5 transmitter of 5 W and 5 lazy-H type UHF antennas and Heliax cables. Later they moved the system to the hotel .All of this equipment was available in the local market (Thessaloniki). The system has been used in that point for several years and then transferred to a hotel 1 km far from that point . ON a recent visit to the city the system has been dissolved and used for several other personal installations of the members of the municipality team.

The mayor's building shown at left , is a preschool child station if i am correct. THis building ws on the start of its make and recently (2005) is has been grown into a 2-3 store building in between a very rich green farm

Ptolemaida is the city of production of electricity for all Greece . There are several lignite power plants outside the city and the older times nearly all inhabitants of the city worked in the power plants

Municipality of Kozani

This system has been installed as a oppression follow-up of the system of Prolemaida, little time after the project in Ptolemaida has been concluded . Kozani is located 20 km south of Ptolemaida and is the capital of the county

The system has been installed in a school in the outskirts of the city ( for that time) about 3 km SE from the city's center It included the same material as the above installation. It is is still in use today (~2000) and relays RTL , RAI 1 , Kanal 1 russia and MTV German ( all free to air channels) ,but about 4 - 5 yearrs ago it has been transfered to another point , possibly the mountains at south.

The picture shown in the left is a photo shot of the building where the antennas were installed .Unfortunately I have not made any picture those times of the installation. It was a very abrupt case that amused all of our team.

This is a set of 3 pictures from Kaduna, North Nigeria on Feb '90

The left shows the TVRO antenna on the top of a container together with the Greek flag , as the owner of the company in Nigeria is Greek man , though he lives in Nigeria for more than 20 years

At the right there is a hot water solar system made by the 'mother company' of the TVRO systems , Thermocal . I Used the facilities of the family's ( those times) company Thermocal to produce the 1.8 m diameter antennas.

At the rear part of the solar hot water is a metallic container that 'contains' the electronic system of my promotional TVRO system with 3 m dish, an analogue sat receiver and a small TV set . As far as i remember there were also other TVRO systems in the trade fair with 5 and even 7 m mesh antennas on the C band as mine's , however my system had the best efficiency and result over remaining systems

We were the guests of the head person of the company 'Hydro Construction ' who is Greek. His company is involved to desiugn and install complete irrigation systems. ie from drilling to community water tanks . IN his pavilion except the drilling and irrigation systems also photo-voltaic [from his side, just introduced for autonomous usage] , solar systems and TVRO were exhibited.

( my TVRO antenna is shown behind the drilling machine at right

The picture on bottom comes from the Feb 26th 1990 issue of "the reporter" newspaper featuring a "trade fair special "

THis was the first part of my trips to Nigeria together with my father . we spent one month on that area. A few months later I gone again to his house on Zaria , N Nigeria for setting up a (never made) TV channel

Two systems in Nigeria . Both systems have been installed by our dealer in Nigeria but later tested by me .

The system at the left is in Idah ( middle Nigeria) and the left in Lagos. the late system was used mainly for receiving the Italian channels from Eutelsat 13E but several days before i visited the city/house the satellite has been replaced by a new one ( Hotbird?) which had a different 'footprint' (illumination pattern)

Shot on 1991

From a trading fair in Hania Creta Greece on 1990 in the local sellers' stand displaying his products in combination with energy systems of the mother company and mine satellite antennas

One of our first used antenna on 1983-4. Antenna is only 1.2 meter and checked /used for Ghorizont 14W on C band, . Here my "cousin-in law" Nick (or Claus) is putting plastic letters on the antenna little before we tested it.

Antenna bought from Spain for experiments.

An antenna tested on those early times . It is a C-band mesh antenna design given by a to be cooperator from USA but tested unsuccessfully in the Ku band Then we replaced its mesh with amuminum foil but still antenna had very low efficiency but as you may see it has a nice appearance!

Another heavy design antenna made experimentally by us Also these early times . As far as I can remember it's weight exceeded 100 kgs! It's diameter is 1.8 m Later this antenna left by someone very stupid to the trash ...