[CQ-Contest] W7RM SK

[Jim Cain]

The report on the 1976 ARRL CW DX Competition, in October 1976 QST, said:

"... Noon in Maryland is 9 A.M. in Washington State. It's raining, naturally. One graduate student's mind is not on his first class of the day, but rather on the last, and how he can avoid it. Only three weeks into the winter term and at probably the most propitious time for mysteriously missing a session, our college person returns to his apartment, packs headphones and a fresh supply of contest log sheets, makes a cardboard sign reading "College Student to Tacoma" and heads for the highway. 

"He hasn't seen the station he will operate in the DX 'Test since last November, hasn't operated on the ham bands since Christmas, but he knows the station as if he had built it himself. Four straight weekends on top of three towers (not all at once!) will do that. 

"The only questions in his mind are how much antenna repair work will be necessary between noon and contest time and how much will that antenna work subtract from the margin of endurance he has spent the past month building up."

The college student was, of course, Chip Margelli, K7VPF (K7JA) and the station was W7RM, that of Rush Drake.

R.I.P., Rush.

Jim Cain, ex-WA1STN