Topband: RIP W7LR

[Lee STRAHAN]

I first met Bob in Visalia when the topband guys were meeting in a restaurant or pizza place which must have been before your time running the Topband dinner Steve.
     Bob was the very first guy I helped with a high impedance antenna array. He contacted me around 2007 when I first posted  my all active 8 element array design stuff on my personal web page. After a few dozen emails we decided he could put a broadside end fire array up for 160 meters in the space he had unused except for his summertime present horses. 320 feet wide as I recall.
     I fixed him up with 4 high impedance amplifiers and he built his own phasing combiner and antenna elements. I still treasure the hand drawn schematic I made for this array.  We struggled by email to make the array work or so it seemed for maybe 2 years. I just could not figure out why the array would not outplay his short Beverage antenna towards Europe.
    One day he called me saying you are not going to believe this to which we proceeded to both laugh out loud. As it turned out he had reversed his antenna switch in the BSEF controller and the BSEF array had been really outplaying the beverage for some time. By the time we finished working on the array he told me he had printed every email and he had a stack over 1 1/2 inches tall of paper.
    Yes, he was very accomplished and loud on 160 meters mostly due to his 2 full size phased transmitting elements and quite capable power amplifier.
     Yes, I miss him too and have for several years as age took its toll and he had to move to a care facility after Kobi his wife passed. I occasionally received updates from Tree as he had contact with Bob's family. Thank you Tree.
    RIP Bob W7LR and thanks for the memories. 

Lee   K7TJR   OR



Subject: Re: Topband: RIP W7LR

So sorry to hear about Bob leaving us all!
We had many QSOs on 160 where Bob always had an outstanding signal.
RIP dear Bob!