[CQ-Contest] Passing of Milt N5IA

[ko7ss at yahoo.com]

I have my cellphone alerts set to breaking news on Tucson.com. The alert came out describing someone killed repairing an "amateur radio" tower on Mt Lemmon. My heart sank, and I knew who it was even before his name was released. I just now got home from work to find out the details.
It happened 3 miles from my QTH.

I first met Milt at a Field Day event with N2IC near Safford, AZ. Amazing Dxpedition stories and photos.

Two years ago when I moved my station from KO7AA in town Tucson to KO7SS up on Mt Lemmon, I 
needed to sell everything to start from scratch. Milt made me a generous offer for "everything". He and his son showed up with a crane borrowed from the Morenci mine and we spent 10 hours taking
down a 3 el 40, 5 el 20, 6 el 15, and 4 el 10 on an 89' crank up. We even pulled out 300' of
LMR-400 out of buried PVC.

I remember Milt had a body harness climbing belt, my wife took photos of us at the top of the
tower with the crane lifting off the big beams. I was so impressed with his energy.

RIP Milt, your passing is an epic loss to ham radio in the SW USA

73, Bill KO7SS on Mt Lemmon in southern AZ