"W4FNB - Waiting 4 a Fellow Named Bill."
That was my way of letting Bill know I needed to talk.
Today is a day I wish I had never become a ham. Then I would never have met Bill Hales, W4FNB. I would never have to report to you that he became a SK this morning and then I wouldn't miss him so much.
In a normal eulogy one speaks of dates: The date someone was born, the day they died, the date they were married, the date they moved to such and such place.
One often speaks of the hows: How they lived, how they died, how they were married. But all of the dates and the who's and the how's are simply history. They do not reveal the real life story of Bill Hales.
So my purpose in writing this is to tell you, and to remind me, of my friend Bill to share just a little of who and what the Bill meant to those that knew him. I cannot tell you all of what Bill was, only what I knew of him.
So if not in dates and places, then where is Bill's real story? The good news is that one doesn't have to go far to find it. Bill left his autobiography imprinted on the thousands of people he met, knew, and loved. He led by example, and, in my mind, a good one at that.
There are several things I admired in Bill. Some came from just being ham radio acquaintances, others from being friends.
The first one that I noticed was his attention to detail. I hesitate to brand him a perfectionist, since that has negative connotations. But there is no question that a quality work product was important to him. Several times at his work bench I would suggest shortcuts or alternatives that just didn't fit his notion of what the job required. There was no scolding. No lectures. Just a measured, mentor's response of why it would be better to take a little extra time to do a first class job. He not only had the values, he had the conviction to stand his ground and defend them when necessary.
I marveled at and enjoyed Bills inquisitiveness. Be it packet radio, fuel cells, Doppler foxhunting gear, or just the vagaries of DOS thru W98, Bill needed to know all about it. And he was doing this at an age most of us consider pretty far off for ourselves! After one of his hospitalizations last year I had to log on the internet and download schematics and theory of operation for the oxygen concentrator they sent him home with. He just had to know "how do it work?"
As our friendship grew I noticed what really made it strong. Bill was a good listener! No matter the subject, from electronics, to investments, to raising children, Bill would listen to my travails with it seemed to me, one ear on the words, and one ear on the truth. He had a way of cutting and pasting my own words back into his answers. As if to say, "see, you knew it all along."
And lastly, the thing I learned to rely on most from Bill was his honest opinion. When I just couldn't convince myself what the right thing was to do or I was afraid to admit it, I knew I could count on Bill. Quite often his replies to me began with, "this is probably not the answer you are looking for" or "you may not want to hear this" .. and often he was right. Sometimes the was no warning shot across the bow! After I had had stated my case, there wasn't much wiggle room between his version of what needed to be done and what was right.
The dates, and places of Bill's life may come later. But for now, it I find comfort in the words of a Hymn just sung yesterday, Easter Sunday, "you ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart."
This Easter Monday, 2001, is a day, that I am glad I became a ham. Otherwise I would never have met my best friend, Bill.
W4FNB "Wishing 4 a Fellow Named Bill." 73 OM
I got a phone call from K4HA, saw the obituary in paper, and KM4LB's email all within minutes of each other.
I will sure miss Bill. I suppose that Bill and I go back to a good 2 years longer than any ham radio operator that I know with the exception of a couple of folks in Mount Airy, NC where I grew up.
As a young guy working his way through college, I worked at WUNL-TV (Public TV's Sauratown Mountain transmitter). I was a green transmitter engineer having just got my commercial radiotelephone license the preceding summer. In those days all the UNC TV sites were manned (none of this remote control stuff).
We also had an antiquated (even them) low band FM system on 26.11 MHz. From the mountain top sites where the transmitters were located this was our primary form of communication with MASTER CONTROL (otherwise known as "Chatham Control"). We had the equivalent of a formal NET each day with each transmitter site relaying information about certain meter readings on the transmitter and the microwave gear.
On the voices that became very familiar to me on the other end of the radio was a guy named Bill. I don't think his last name was ever given over the air. He was always very patient with me (being the new guy). I was really nervous the first few times I participated in the "Net" but it some became part of my regular routine and even something I looked forward to. A couple of times when I was at the site and took some lightning hits, Bill was on the radio checking on the "kid" and offering suggestions on how to get things back on in a hurry. Even though Bill didn't have the same model of transmitter at the Chatham site, he had obviously spent some time reading the technical manual for the Sauratown transmitter. Once he helped me via radio troubleshoot a problem with out visual exciter after an intense lighting storm that left the telephone in pieces and us off the air. Fortunately the old low band tube radio still worked with Bill's voice booming out of the speaker with some words of wisdom.
Some twenty plus years passed and I found myself living in Raleigh, a new ham radio operator, and attending a Cary meeting. During the introductions I hear a familiar voice from a guy named Bill sitting in the back. Turning around, I saw an aging man of small physical stature, but with that booming radio voice. During the refreshment break I went over and introduced myself . Bill didn't remember my name but he did remember the "kid" that worked at Sauratown (KRS612 was our call sign, and he even remembered that!)
Tom is certainly right about Bill always wanting to learn new things. We once talked on the air about an new type of tube that's being used in high power UHF transmitters. Bill wanted to know all about it and how it worked. I guess that was why he was so good a the master control operator watching over us transmitter engineers from Manteo to Murphy.
We'll all miss you Bill,
73,
Frank, W4FAL
KRS612, the "Kid"
Everyone knows that a clock has a tick which marks the passage of each second of time.
I've known Bill Hales and Henry Horne since we worked together at Aerotron in the 1960's. I listened to them frequently and occasionally participated in their Wednesday morning QSO on the ham bands. Finally I thought of their conversations as the tick tock of the .88 machine, marking the passage of time by the week, every Wednesday morning at 0900.
The tick has now stopped.
It will be missed.
Lyn Williams, W4WDN