Friday, December 22, 2017

Milestones: KF7DSY to Houston; "World's Oldest Ham" SK


Purdue University sophomore Jacob Nunez-Kearny, KF7DSY, is taking the spring semester off from classes to work as an intern at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. According to the ARRL Letter, Nunez-Kearny, a William R. Goldfarb Memorial Scholarship winner, is majoring in aerospace engineering and will remain a full-time student during his internship. He will resume regular classes next fall, and still expects to graduate in four years because he earned several college credits while still in high school.

He was said to be the world's oldest ham - nobody keeps official records - but French amateur Jean Touzot, F8IL, had a pretty good claim to the title at age 109! The ARRL Letter reports that Touzot became a Silent Key last fall. Up until he "retired" from active hamming in 2014 (at age 105) for health reasons, Touzot could be found daily on 80-meter CW.  He  was born in Algeria and was a licensed amateur since 1936. Touzot had retired in 1966 from a career as an industrial designer.