In January I lost one of my oldest friends, Brian VE3CRG. His passing was not unexpected since his medical challenges were accumulating and he was just shy of his 88th birthday. Nevertheless it is a sad reality. The family held a celebration of life a few weeks ago.
I won't make this article too long. It is my opportunity to share a few reminiscences of a fellow ham of an older generation, a person who was dear to me. Those who are active on the HF bands may have heard him as he rattled away on CW, often at speeds above 40 wpm. The CW sub-bands are a little quieter today.
We first met in 1980 when the multi-op contest team at VE3PCA was looking for CW operators. Brian had already been an avid CW DXer for more than 20 years, first licensed as MP4BCV in 1959 when deployed by the RAF to Bahrein. You can read more about him at his QRZ.com page, from which the above composite photo was retrieved.
I had been a ham for 8 years with a penchant for CW DXing and contests. Our 20 year age difference was no barrier. We paired up well since (as we often laughed) he liked to talk and I liked to listen -- an introvert and an extrovert. We did many road trips (Dayton etc.) where he did almost all the talking. We also both had careers in Ottawa's high tech industry -- mine had just begun when we first met -- and we shared an oddball sense of humour. No matter how many times he retold some stories they were still enjoyable.
He had an extraordinary exuberance for life, even recently when his prospects were dimming. When opportunities arose during his life, he jumped, whether it was marriage to Mollie (for 67 years!), moving to Canada, a business opportunity, or an invitation to visit hams elsewhere in the world. It was easy to convince him to pamper himself with some modern equipment, which he enjoyed immensely in his final days and months.
I had been working on towers for several years before meeting Brian, although my knowledge was modest and my safety practices abhorrent. When his family moved to a small acreage in the early 1980s it was an opportunity to learn and do. Being single, young and eager I stepped up to help make his antenna dreams come true.
I was over there many weekends, even during winter, for a few years doing tower and antenna work. Mollie was always ready to seat me at the table to share meals with them and their teenage sons. For a single young man far from home those home cooked meals were really appreciated.
The 100' tower on the right was erected in the mid-1980s. (I took several photos of the prints in his pictures albums.) Since both of us came from very modest beginnings, we enjoyed getting the job done as cheaply as possible. The total spent for the tower, concrete, steel and antennas was about $1000 (not adjusted for inflation).
A local ham, a retired welder, helped us fabricate parts needed to assemble and strengthen the old 80' windmill tower, and the 20' of tower we fit on top. The Hy-Gain yagis (204 and 155) were purchased used for a good price. The tower also supported wire antennas, including 2-element delta loops for 40 and 80 meters. He enjoyed operating this station for many years.
The tower was still standing when the property was bought by a developer almost 15 years ago -- it had badly rusted and collapsed into the trees on then now vacant lot about 2 years ago. He took the smaller tower and hex beam to their new house some 20 km to the west, escaping the relentless expansion of urban sprawl. It's hard to believe that the busy residential thoroughfare used to be a quiet county road and that the neighbour's horses come up to wood rail fence to see what we were up to. That's all gone now.
There were 3 of us who did almost all of the work, with the third being Dave, now VE3KG. It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot. I have to say that I learned lessons about how not to build large guyed towers! But nobody was injured and I came away with knowledge and skills that would come in handy later, for helping others and more recently for myself.
For example, instead of using hand tools I rented a pneumatic breaker to cut through the shale to plant my tower in 1985. Another was making a gin pole to lift 20' long 200 lb tower sections!
I still remember the exhilaration when I first stood atop the tower with nothing more than a steel mast impeding my view of the countryside. The reinforced top section was so narrow that my work boots overlapped the bearing plate.
That's me 40 years ago posing with the 15 meter yagi after assembly. I notice that I still have that toolbox. Raising the yagis did not go well. I was still a little unclear on how to construct and operate tram lines (to lift yagis over the guys) and mistakes were made. Nothing was seriously damaged but it took us far longer to get them up the tower than it should have. More lessons learned.
One thing about Brian was that he was easily distracted. His acreage was littered with my tools, which he frequently put down or dropped on the rough ground and in the bush, to be lost forever. Oh well. I saw it as an opportunity to buy better tools!
Often it was safest to put a hardhat on his head, sit him down in the shade with his favourite lawn chair and elect him supervisor. That brought smiles all around and the work would then proceed quite smoothly.
Brian was never a serious contester. For him the joy came from working lots of DX, teamwork and sharing good times with friends. He especially enjoyed keeping track of country multipliers -- well, he was a DXer! -- and cheer leading. Had we had online scoreboards back then I'm sure he'd have tracked the competition and constantly urged us to work harder.
He would enter contests from time to time after our multi-op VE3PCA group disbanded in early 1984, but never seriously. Dave operated from his station in a few contests although I never did. I was happy enough with the smaller station I built at my first house. I believe the SB220 near Brian's elbow is the one I have stored in the next room!
In recent years he came over a few times to help with the antenna work to, as he said, repay the help I'd given him over the years. Unfortunately that's hard to do when in your 80s. He occasionally operated my station and surprised his regular QSO mates with a signal far louder than usual. Most times he and Mollie would simply come to visit.
One of his final objectives was to gather the cards he needed to apply for DXCC Honor Roll. He was one short. Unfortunately cards had gone missing over the years and he couldn't get replacements, despite his efforts to follow the leads to those who held the logbooks for DXpeditions from years ago.
While he didn't succeed at that quest he did achieve one last goal: the 2500 endorsement for the DXCC Challenge award. In mid-December he emailed me a picture of the LoTW screen showing that magic number. Mollie is waiting for the endorsement to arrive so she can paste it onto the plaque. The plaque and lots of rare QSL cards were prominently displayed at his Celebration of Life.
Brian was operating high speed CW or talking to old friends on SSB until the end. We spoke often on the phone and I periodically visited when I was in the area.
He was in the hospital for a week after the final crisis without regaining consciousness. I wasn't able to have that one last eyeball QSO with him.
His shack is now empty and the equipment will be sold. The tower and beam will be taken down when the winter weather relents. I'm glad that I can help in this final stage of his long ham career.
73 my friend.
