Topband: W4OWJ - Jack Matthews- SK

[Richard L. King]

How does one get on a 160M call list?

I never thought to do that. I guess I might have missed a few because of it.

Who is running a 160M call list these days?

73, Richard - K5NA


-----Original Message----- 
From: k1zm at aol.com
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 09:45 AM
To: topband at contesting.com
Subject: Topband: W4OWJ - Jack Matthews- SK


GM ALL



W4ZV and K8MFO have already commented on Jack's passing - I will only note a 
bit more here.


I happened to be one of those guys on "JACK'S PHONE LIST"that K8MFO 
mentioned earlier - and I too benefited from a number of late night & early 
morning phone calls as did N4WW, N0XA and others over the years.



Jack was a really fine gentleman - the genuine real deal kind of guy - soft 
spoken and a fine 160m operator well into his 80's.



As Bernie's post noted, Jack lived to be 96 and I used to see him in the 
160M suite at Dayton in the mid 1980's - I used to go with him to Dayton and 
one day Jack said - "Jeff, I have outlived most of the guys I used to come 
here to talk with - except for you and ZV and one or two others, I really do 
not know too many of the guys anymore".  I guess that happens when you 
outlive most of your peers....



Always, in good humor, Jack suffered a personal tragedy when his son 
predeceased him - something I know hit him very hard some years ago.



When he retired to a retirement community in FLA some years later, he still 
managed a good signal on xmit on 160m although his Rx situation suffered 
somewhat as a result.



I do recall calling him on the phone to work VK0IR in 1997 when Bob Allphin 
was there and Jack made the Q from his small lot.  He was thrilled to get 
that one into his log...



Like me Jack was an FT1000D guy and we often talked about what a neat radio 
it was when it first came out.



Over the years, my phone would ring now and then - and his familiar voice 
would say "Jeff  (long pause....) - this is Jack Matthews".....and we would 
just chat about things for a half hour or so.... "Are u working anything new 
these days he would say...it has been really slow down here..."



I will miss those phone calls for sure and the distant friendship of a 
really nice guy - he always asked me to come down to visit but somehow I 
never managed to do that - now I sure wish that I had found the time to do 
so at least once.



RIP Jack - you will be missed - sorry we will not be hearing "OWJ" in the 
pileups on 160m anymore when a rare one shows up.



73 JEFF  K1ZM/VY2ZM



Email   K1ZM at aol.comGM

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