Phil and I have been good friends for over 35 years. I will sorely miss
his humor and big smile. We met at meetings of the Southern California
DX Club (SCDXC) and then we were among the charter members of the
Southern California Contest Club (SCCC). I had the pleasure of
contesting with Phil from several DX locations, the first of which was
the XE2SI DXpedition for the ARRL DX contest. Yes, the same one that
Tree mentioned in his comments; I was the 160M op. I have also been at
ZW5B and LU4FM with him. I have some pictures of the trip to Argentina
where Phil and others were invited to dinner at my cousin's home in BA.
They are not digital so I will have to dig them out and scan them so
they can be shown. I also had the pleasure of being whipped by him at
racquetball on many occasions. When his previous wife was sick and
finally died from cancer Phil was devastated and just about gave up ham
radio. When I saw Phil at Dayton about 6 years ago, he told me he had
just met a lady through Yahoo!Personals and he commuted on the weekends
to see her. (I think she lived in Sante Fe). It had taken him a while
but he said he just made up him mind to move on. Phil was a new man,
and they were married shortly. In the last few years, I regularly QSO'd
with Phil in contest and he always took the time to say a few words. We
often had nice talks on 6M during the summer E's season.
I will truly miss Phil. Not only was he a good contester, be he was a
great human being. 73's Phil.
Neal, K4EA (ex AE6E)
|