Last night, I have received an e mail from Dit HS0ZQE telling Tim VK3IM passed away 3 days ago. It was an expected news but still a sad one which brought me a big loss in my mind.
I have met him first in '60s when he was VK3AZY. After a long pause of QRT for 10 years, when I came back on the radio at the dormitory of a med school hospital in 1980, I started talking to him quite often. As I wrote in the other posts regarding him, he was commuting between Mt. Eliza, a suburb of Melbourne, and Melbourne.
On the way back home from his office, he often operated /M on his old Mazda. It was equipped with a home brew whip with a big loading coil and a top hat capacitor. I came back to the dorm after a busy day work. We started chatting on 40m CW. My antenna was only a vertical on the roof. But around or a bit after the sunset, the grey line path enabled us enjoy chatting for some time. Despite of having a kind of introverted character in a sense, he was a sociable experienced ham. He always enjoyed chatting friends world wide. It was amazing he used to work with Europe via long path on 40m or even on 80m from that tiny mobile station. I still remember his fast CW on a bit chirpy signal. That chirp was a kind of fascinating to me.
We shared old friends together such as Harry G3ATH, formerly 9V1MT in '60s, VK4CC, VK3XU and many more. We have not run out topics to talk about especially on good old days. It was an unforgettable QSO when he told me about his mother passing away. When he came home, he found her dead on a locking chair on the veranda. What a shock it was for him! We have talked for more than 3 hours, I believe. On the other time, he told me how he was washing cloths at home. He didn't have a washing machine and washed them in the bath tub. It was a fun to imagine him doing that. He used to visit Ara VK1ARA, one of my old friends in teen age days, in Canberra on a winter holidays. Ara was JA1RHL in the same town as I started radio and, later, managed a Japanese restaurant in Canberra those days. I don't know why but he could not see him in person and came home all alone. I bet he was hesitating to see him in eye ball. What a shy guy!
I might have recorded parts of our chats in the log. I should reopen those old logs.
When he reached home in Mt. Eliza, he often told me to hold on. He used to say " I would bring the radio into the house and, together with a glass of vermouth, go into the shack. Let's carry it on!".
With him passing away now, those good old days have belong to the memories in the past, which I could never reach again any longer. In his latest years, he has suffered from cause unknown illness of pain, which he should use opiates to relieve from. Without his beloving hobby at the nursing home, what days of grief he has had to spend! Now he is free from those agonizing time on the earth. I have lost an irreplaceable companion in the journey of life. I would, however, say "you have lived a good life in your way and take good rest in heaven now".
About 40 years ago, Tim on the bonnet of old Mazda.
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