Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Milestones: K3IO, K7SZ, SKs

Inaugural CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame member Dr. Tom Clark, K3IO (formerly W3IWI), became a Silent Key on September 28 at age 82. Clark was a leading authority on Very Long Baseline Interferometry, a key player in the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and a pioneer in amateur radio digital and satellite communications. As a founding member of TAPR (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio), the AMSAT News Service reported, Clark was a leader in developing the AX.25 digital protocol on which all amateur packet radio is based. He was also AMSAT's second president and was instrumental in developing much of the hardware that flew on multiple amateur satellites. He spent his professional career at NASA.

Longtime CQ and Popular Communications columnist Rich Arland, K7SZ, passed away October 7. Rich was also an authority on QRP (low-power) communication and authored several editions of the ARRL's Low Power Communications book. He was CQ's "Learning Curve" editor from 2010-2012 and a longtime columnist for Popular Communications..