[CQ-Contest] Gene Zimmerman, W3ZZ
David Thompson
thompson at mindspring.com
Mon Jun 4 16:15:15 PDT 2012
I remember Gene as an aggressive K1ANV in the ARRL SS in the late 1950's and
later as an operator at Multi multi's.
I ran into Gene again when a group of us went to Mount Mitchell in 1964. We
did not carry an AM KW but we did bring a Clegg Zeus and Interceptor. We
made 700 QSOs on 6 and about 300 on 2 meters. The only hams we worked on
both 6 and 2 were Gene, Sam Harris, Ed Clegg, and Trav K9EBE of
Hallicrafters. Gene said the 6 el Hy-gain 6 meter beam (only 5 feet over
the garage) was a constant signal on both CW and AM at his QTH. Helen
Harris was also worked on 6 from the big dish in KP4.
Come forward to the 2003 and Gene and I traded e-mails about beams for 6
meters. His advice was to use the 1994 or later Cushcraft design. He also
pointed me to the K9MU modification to the older Cushcraft 5 element I
picked up from Ron Hooper, W4WA. With the beam pointing N and using a rope
for rotation I made 300+ QSOs in the June VHF Contest with a barefoot
FT-920.
I always enjoyed his VHF column. I consider Gene a ham's ham. RIP Gene.
73 Dave K4JRB ex K5MDX and WA4MIV lead operator in 1964 on Operation
Skytop II.
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