Another sad news Bill K1YT passed away on July 15th

Yesterday morning, I have opened an e mail from Bill's e mail address. I thought it had been one of his mails which he used to write to let me know how he was doing. It was from his wife, Lisa, telling me Bill had passed away on July 15th after having fought against a complication of interstitial pneumonia, which he had suffered for the past years. An unbelievable and saddest news.

I have known him through ham radio in the end of '80s when the high bands were quite active. He was with his former call sign W1EYT then. We have talked a lot on our beloving mode of CW. Together with a couple of friends, I have been to Cambodia operating as XU0JA in 1990. Yes, it was a hectic mad days when we were so enthusiastic for DXing. 

He told me to visit him with the slides I had taken during that trip. I decided to visit him in Oct of 1991. He has prepared a meeting where I reported about the trip to Cambodia at his home, where a couple of dozens of ham operators, mostly well known to me, attended to and listened to my feeble report. He and his wife have kindly held such a nice meeting for me to see them.

Ever since, we have met once in a few months on the air and, lately more frequently, by e mail. We have discussed a lot of topics from politics to daily lives. In the recent year or two, the on-going inflation was the topic for us. He was quite happy to have had his deranged aortic valve replaced by a catheterization surgery which was quite successful and brought him a life in great shape. I knew interstitial peumonia has affected him for the past years. I believed, however, as he often told me, it had been stable with small amount of steroid. 

This photo showing him was taken during a drive around his place. We were intending to visit old Clem W1EVT after watching his huge phased array at his home. We were lost there and could not find the entrance to his home. We have lost a chance to see this old guy. It was the week end when WW phone contest was held. We have seen John K1AR operating for it at K1EA then. We have gone to Jim K1MEM as well, who went SK as well a few years after our visit. Bill is still this image shown in this photo within my memory, a young and stout guy.

I know of littel about his young days. He has not mentioned it so often. Seemingly, he was not so happy in his young days. He still made it to MIT and has become an engineer doing with optic technology research. He has served at a lab of a governmental office for decades. He had loved that job so much that he was sorry to quit it. In retirement, he has spent a peaceful life with his wife Lisa and a son William Jr. 

In the most recent correspondence with him in May, he was willing to prevent the wild creatures from invading his lot eating the crops and flowers in the garden and to enjoy doing farming/gardening this year. Between the lines, however, his sentences sounded not to concentrate on the topics as they used to. He might have had the interstitial pneumonia aggravated by that time, even though he has never mentioned of that.

Lisa told me in the mail that he had often mentioned about me and apprediated of me as well. Even though I am not sure if I deserve such a compliment by him or not, I always felt comfortable talking to him since I knew I had been accepted by him in that way. There are few relationships like that with him, basically approving and understanding each other in a stable way. I owe much to him in that respect. 

Thanks a lot, my good old friend, Bill. RIP.