Three longtime
leaders in the amateur radio community have become Silent Keys…
Walt Maxwell, W2DU,
was a renowned expert in antennas and transmission lines and was the author of Reflections, an authoritative text on the subject (the most recent edition of
which was published by CQ). He was 93.
Dick Baldwin, W1RU,
joined the staff of the ARRL in 1948. He rose through the ranks and - after
leaving the League briefly in the 1950s - returned and held down positions of
increasing responsibility before becoming General Manager in 1975. Starting in
1976, he served concurrently as Secretary of the International Amateur Radio
Union (IARU). After "retiring" in 1982, Baldwin was elected IARU
President and held that position until 1999. Dick was 92.
Paul Lieb, KH6HME, held down the
Hawaii end of summertime California-to-Hawaii ducts on VHF and UHF. His beacon
on the Mauna Loa volcano alerted VHF DXers to openings and he regularly drove
up the mountain during these events to make contacts with hams on the mainland
on bands as high as 10 GHz. He was the holder of numerous VHF and UHF DX
records and his beacon helped generate a tremendous amount of data about
propagation in the northern Pacific.
