Hello All, The unpleasant news of John's sudden passing comes as a deep personal shock to both Guy Atkins and me, since we both knew him very closely, and have enjoyed years of his close friendship and guidance. This has included joint DXpeditions, joint technical projects, article drafting partnership, etc. Although Guy certainly enjoyed a much longer friendship with John, during the past two years John and I had become very close in our cooperative partnership to found, organize, promote and direct the Ultralight Radio segment of the AM-DXing hobby. John had a natural talent for organization, something that a wildly enthusiastic (but extremely diverse) ULR enthusiast group desperately needed in late 2007. Our small group was definitely outside of the "mainstream" of the AM-DXing community at the time, and many of the established DXers viewed us with a high degree of skepticism-- doubting even the concept of serious DXing with pocket radios. To John's credit, although he was certainly one of the "established DXers," he kept an open mind about our enthusiastic movement, and discovered (like most of us) that Ultralight Radio DXing was indeed thrilling... thrilling enough to rejuvenate his interest in the hobby itself. Freely donating his superb organizational talent to the Ultralight Radio cause, John was instrumental in the creation of the Definitions Committee, Awards Committee and Contest Committee. When the Yahoo Ultralightdx group was founded in early 2008, John's expertise and experience were essential in establishing the vibrant and fast-growing forum that we enjoy today. John and I constantly shared ideas about the challenges facing the Ultralight Radio movement, such as the impending exhaustion of file space on the booming Ultralightdx site. Although we occasionally had our differences of opinion, we enjoyed a very deep level of mutual respect, based upon our cooperative success (along with many others) in building up this vibrant sub-group of the AM-DXing hobby. Ironically John had recently made the decision to become a full-time resident of Washington state, and both Guy and I were looking forward to spending more time with him. There isn't much more to write at this point, since like Guy I am still in a state of shock over this very unpleasant news. Please join us in expressing your condolences to his family, when the details of the ceremony are posted. Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA)
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