CQ DX Hall of Fame member and former CQ magazine DX Editor Carl Smith, N4AA, became a Silent Key in October at age 77. Carl was also the owner of DX Publishing and publisher of QRZ DX and DX Magazine and one of the co-founders of the W4DXCC Convention (which happens to be featured in December CQ's DX column).
Amateur satellite pioneer Patrick J.A. Gowen, G3IOR,
became a Silent Key over the summer. He was 85. According to the AMSAT News Service,
Pat was a co-founder of AMSAT-UK, served as a board member of AMSAT-NA and was
a longtime satellite columnist for independent British ham magazine Practical Wireless. Gowen was also the
first person to work 100 DX entities via satellite (although he was 4th to get
all the confirmations to secure the satellite DXCC award); he and W2RS made the
first transatlantic handheld-to-handheld QSO – via satellite, of course – and
it was Pat who discovered that AMSAT OSCAR-7 had come back to life in 2002
after decades of silence.