Bill Fisher and I were friends for almost 22 years, our friendship
starting early on in our HF contesting careers. Long I will remember
those nights on 40m chatting with Bill and the operators now known to
the world as N5TJ and N2NC.
I knew of nobody as generous with his time and with as unique a
personal touch as Bill. Bill was as straight as straight-shooters
come. You absolutely knew where he stood on most any issue he felt
passionate about. This was one of the things we knew and loved about
Bill. In many ways he was a breath of fresh air in this world of
political correctness.
Many will not comprehend the amount of time and resources he poured
into this hobby of ours. I was only too glad to help him maintain the
servers and network that many of these services run on. I always felt
it was the least I could do to contribute. Bill and I spent much time
on the phone, sometimes at very odd hours of the night, if anything
went down or whatever. And in between the lull of network outages we
chatted about contesting.
Bill was so proud of the station he had built. I did have one
opportunity to visit the mountain in CQ WPX Phone 1999, when Bill and
I set the M/S SSB Record and had a real blast, even though both of us
preferred CW. I'll also remember that he sent me an instant message
several days after a brief visit to one of the KC1XX M/M operations.
All it said was "You should be doing single op." When I asked him
what he meant by that, he told me I had all the right stuff to win.
The rest was just practice. That made quite an impression on me.
Bill's enthusiasm and generosity extended far beyond contesting.com
and eham.net, which is he is well known for, but with generating
activity in great contests like the NCJ Sprint. Bill tirelessly put
together Sprint teams by calling, emailing, and sending postcards out
to people.
And the world may never see a better and more accomplished CW contest
operator. Bill's skills were uncanny, and he was always and will
forever be an inspiration to me and many others.
Bill was a good friend and one of the very best in everything he set
out to do. His energy was boundless and his enthusiasm for this
hobby, and especially contesting, was intense. I am going to miss him
terribly.
RIP Bill.
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The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
THE OFFICIAL FILM of WRTC 2002 now on professional DVD and VHS!
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