I too will always remember Tom's booming signal on meteor scatter
from my earliest days on 6 back in the 70's. He was one of those guys
that could make his own band opening! And it seemed whenever you
wanted to try some scatter, Tom would usually be there to make
contact. Such sad news. Rest in peace dear friend.
-73, Ron WZ1V FN31
At 07:52 PM 11/1/2008, David Olean wrote:
>I first ran into Tom, K8MMM on six meter scatter back in 1964 or
>1965. Not sure of the date exactly, but I lived in Connecticut, was
>a young kid, and put up a big yagi on six meters (courtesy of
>W1RJA) with a 500 watt HB 4E27A amp, soon followed by a bigger push
>pull 4-400A amp along with a homebrew filter type SSB exciter. I
>immediately was working SSB ionospheric scatter and K8MMM was one of
>the guys my brother and I worked every night after 11:30 when the
>nightly news was over! I always felt a close association with that
>early group. Besides K8MMM, there was W3KWH, WA9OUU, K9DZK, and some
>other experimenters spread across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
>K8MMM was always 100% readable no matter what. He had his act
>together then. I always enjoyed working him over the years,
>remembering those early days of VHF ssb.
> I will miss Tom's signal. This is a sad day.
>
>73 Dave K1WHS
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Vic
> To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
> Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 1:13 AM
> Subject: K8MMM - Silent Key
>
>
>
> For you regulars on the weekend 6 meter scatter circuit -- some
> of you may have heard by now -- Very Sad News today.. Just received
> this from Lee.. KZ4RR & John WZ8D -- de Vic //
>
>
> I am very saddened to report that my good friend, Tom Baker,
> passed away early today. I met Tom @ 1963 (when I was 11), and he
> has been a friend and mentor ever since. He inspired me to many
> achievements starting with ham radio....building antennas and
> amplifiers, but also including a wide range of activities from golf
> and tennis to drag racing, and watching the Cleveland Browns with
> large antennas pointed at Erie for the home games. I spent many
> days and nights at Tom's house in Novelty, and was treated like
> family by his Mom and Dad...including many home cooked meals. Tom
> was generally the first person I talked to with a new radio or
> antenna or mobile. Tom & I operated in many, many VHF and HF
> contests over the years and generally finished number 1 or 2. Tom,
> achieved the top single op score in the U.S. operating from my
> station in the 1972 CQ WW DX contest with over 1600 contacts in
> over 200 countries in a 24 hour period! After moving to Florida, I
> remember the first ti
> me I put up a tower in 1984...... I called Tom on the phone to
> tell him that the tower was up and ready for a test. He said, I
> have been listening to you tune up for the last 20 minutes! We then
> had our first scatter 6M qso...with S3-5 solid residual signals
> over 700 miles...since then we have had thousands of similar qso's
> to the amazement of locals trying to work across town. Tom still
> holds at least one 6 meter worldwide DX record, and is regarded as
> one of the top 6 meter operators of all time. I am still using one
> of Tom's 6 meter amplifiers that he built in the 1960's.
>
> Darren Humphreys, KB3MHX, has been Tom's close friend and
> business partner in recent years, and has helped Tom build a very
> nice company called Neotek Engineering. My sincere thanks to
> Darren, who has always been there to help Tom....especially during
> his recent illness.
>
> K8MMM. and his great signal, genuine friendship, and quirky sense
> of humor will be greatly missed. Please forward any correspondence
> or communication regarding Tom to me, and feel free to forward this
> to interested parties.
>
> Thanks & 73, Lee
> WA8LRE/KZ4RR
>_______________________________________________
>VHFcontesting mailing list
>VHFcontesting@contesting.com
>http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|