Tom K5RC passed away

I have already posted it in facebook... Jim N3BB posted a sad news that Tom K5RC had died on Jun 12th. He has closed his station/home in Nevada and has moved to TX close to his family in last winter. I just wondered what had happened to him. Too soon to have this sad news now.

I just would like to add a few words of condolence to him and his family here. It was around late '80s when I became a friend of Tom. He used to be a real big gun in contest and sounded a bit difficult for me to do with then. Having more QSOs with him discussing more about ourselves and such as health issues etc, he has become one of the friendliest guys for me.

In my blog in Japanese, as the earliest post I have mentioned about him, he showed up in Dec 2006. It was regarding a QSO when he was coming home after a long driving trip to Texas on business and then to Tucson seeing his family. He was operating from mobile then. Around that time, the no code license was one of the familiar topics in the US. To my question how it has been brought in the ham radio in the US, he answered two things. One was the demand from the ham radio gear manufacturers which would yield ham radio operators without Morse Code requirement. The other was that there was no requirement of Morse Code for emergency communications. He was laughing telling me not to ask about that topic any more since he had a lot to talk about. He sounded happy having spent good holidays with his child and grandchildren. 

From my point of view, his another contribution to ham radio world was that he had let some friends run his big station, who could not operate much from home. So far as I know, 3 people could run it. Most of all, Ellen W1YL has enjoyed operating it from her apartment in Florida after she had to close down ham radio for several years. When I asked Tom how they divided the operating hours in a day, he answered Ellen was assigned to early morning hours there while the other two were asleep. That was why I often heard her operating 40m with the big Yagi and roared like a ham radio queen in our early evening hours. I always enjoyed chatting with her with a glass of beer. She was so happy being able to talk to her friends all over the world on her beloving mode. Like a real queen or rather a teenage girl so vivid and happy. I have owed much to her those days. Her remote operation has started in 2016 and ended in 2022 when Ellen passed away. Tom sometimes complained how tough it was to keep the station alive but he has made much efforts for Ellen and the others. 

He has made much achievements not only in his profession of risk management and ham radio contesting but also in such philantropic activity in ham radio society. I sure miss such a QSO with him in 2006, one in the good old days. RIP my friend, Tom.