[Moon-net] Kjell, SM7BAE

[LANCE COLLISTER]

Lionel H. Edwards wrote:
> To all who knew Kjell Rasmussen, SM7BAE:
> 
> Kjell Rasmussen, SM7BAE has recently passed away. He was one month shy of 
> his 80th Birthday.
> 
> Many of you will remember his premier 2M EME station and excellent 
> operating from the late 1960s onwards. He provided many first time EME 
> contacts to stations around the world.
> 
> My Wife and I had the privilege of meeting Kjell and his Wife at his home 
> near Malmo, Sweden in 1986.
> 
> He had been active up to relatively recently on both 6M and 2M EME.
> 
> The EME fraternity has lost one of the true EME pioneers.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 73,
> Lionel, VE7BQH
> ve7bqh at shaw.ca
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
I was very sorry to learn of Kjell's passing.  I had heard that he had been ill, and 
I just hope he did not suffer for long.  It certainly is sobering and sad to see so 
many of our old friends dropping away.

Kjell was my 18th 2m contact back on October 16, 1978, and he was always willing to 
help encourage new EME stations and bring them along.  I remember how I always used 
to grin with great frustration as he would send our calls on CW - "WA1JXN/7 de 
SM7BAE" - at about 10 wpm on a fast day.  The dashes were so long and slow that they 
would get broken up into dots! :-)  I remember many contacts with Kjell on 2m and 20m 
SSB in the old pre-email days when we needed HF to set up skeds.

18 years and 3 days after our first EME contact (on 2m), Kjell gave me my first 6m 
EME contact, and that certainly demonstratged his patience and kindness in helping 
new stations get on 6m!  I had just gotten on 6m for the first time in the spring of 
1996 - with a newly built 8877 amp and 7 element yagi (designed for me by Lionel, 
VE7BQH).  It was only 20' off the ground, but it seemed to work FB, and I ran for a 
number of months with Kjell before we completed that fall.  We kept running skeds on 
my moonrise during the optimum days of aech month, and every 4 weeks we had recurring 
geomagnetic disturbances and aurora that coincided with our skeds :-(  It was quite 
an exciting accomplishment when we finally completed!

Kjell was very dedicated to 6m EME - as you would HAVE to be to put up 8 large yagis 
with full elevation on that band!  When K1JT came out with the new weak signal 
digital modes, Kjell immediately was aware of what they would mean to 6m EME, where 
signals always seemed more than a little TOO weak!  I was pleased to see Kjell 
migrate so quickly to this welcome new technology and continue to provide such a 
reliable large signal for newcomers to 6m EME.  I worked him many times on digital 
modes on 6m EME, and he always had a great signal (about 500 Hz off frequency, as I 
recall - HI!), and often called me out of the blue just to let me know I was getting 
out ;-)

He had sent me tapes of his 6m echoes to share with others at club meetings, along 
with photos of his EME arrays. He shared with me via email in the last couple of 
years how pleased he was to see the large growth in 6m EME, and I believe that was 
one of his favorite personal challenges.

We will miss Kjell and his pioneering spirit. RIP, Kjell!  VY 73, Lance



-- 
Lance Collister, W7GJ (ex: WN3GPL, WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8)
P.O. Box 73
Frenchtown, MT  59834  USA
QTH: DN27UB
TEL: (406) 626-5728
URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj
2m DXCC #11/6m DXCC #815