"Reflection on the Life of W8FJK"

From: Walter Rowe, K4MJ

Subject: W8FJK

Date: Mon, 3 Oct. 2005 14:32:45 +0000

 People:

 I am grieving this morning.  My very good and very old friend, W8FJK passed away last Saturday afternoon.  There are a few things that I MUST say in regards to this man.  I can not allow the moment to pass without a few comments from me.

 As most of you know, I am K4MJ, ex W4KBV and W8REJ. I was born and raised in Detroit down near what is now the center of the city.

 About the time that I was in South Western High School, I first met Chuck.  I had become a radio amateur and was invited to a Christmas party at the home of W8FJL. Beyond the backyard of his house, on Stone Street lived Chuck and his brothers. Here is where I first met Chuck. Time was sometime in the thirties.

 We became very close friends after our first meeting.  Both of us were high speed code operators.  My code speed in those days was over fifty words per minute but I was NEVER able to send faster than Chuck could receive.

 We played a little game.  Each time that we turned over a transmission the code speed went up five words per minute.  Each of us would finally reach our sending speed limit but in each case neither of us had reached our copying speed limit.

 We played this little game every time we made a code contact.  Neither of us ever operated much radio telephone.  For years, we kept a radio schedule once a week with two other amateur stations; W8FJL (later to become K6NO on the West coast) and W8ONK who later moved first to Penn and then to Florida.

 Our code sessions attracted many other radio amateurs from around the country because of the high speed code that they heard.  We would even, at times, be joined by stations in other countries who were listening.

 My thing in amateur radio was high speed code sessions and Chucks’ was trying to make a radio contact in EVERY country in the world.  He made his goal sometime about two years ago.  He has proof of every such contact that he made in a very neat file box in his operating room.

 Now I have managed to make a large number of such contacts but I am afraid that my count of countries contacted is somewhat less than what he managed. He was competing with W8RCM in that race.

 Chuck and I would, sometimes, work together making long range overseas radio contacts. We would alternate making calls to stations in other countries even though we were several hundred miles apart.

 One Saturday night, about 11:30, I made a contact with a sail boat attempting to cross the South Atlantic from the Union of South Africa to Brazil.  The crew of the sail boat was a young married couple on their honeymoon.  Chuck and I together followed them every night at midnight for at least a week to relay messages to their families back in South Africa.  We stayed with them until they could see the lights along the shore at Recife Brazil.

 He and I drifted apart when I became involved in building a home in the mountains of North Georgia.  He and Lois visited us a few times.

 I guess that you could say that Chuck and I were brothers. The great depression was in full swing when both of us entered the job market.  He managed to obtain a car and I put up the money to buy the gas.  This arrangement worked out well for each of us. We double dated together.  He was a great dancer and loved it but not I.

 We were both members of the Motor City Radio Club.  He joined the year before I as for the United States Navy Reserve.  He talked me into joining the Navy.  We marched five miles together up Woodward Avenue behind a Marine band on the fourth of July in 1939, along with one hundred and twenty five other sailors dressed in our white uniforms with leggings and a 1903 Springfield over our shoulder.  We were side by side, each of us feeling that today WE ARE A MAN.

 When the war came on and we were called up (at almost the same time), we went in different directions.  I into the Atlantic fleet and Chuck into the Pacific fleet.

 When the war was over, we picked up where he had left off.

 I, K4MJ, have met, in my lifetime, many men but not one that I thought as much of as my friend Chuck.  Here was a man I could share my most secrets thoughts, secure in the knowledge that such information would be completely confidential.

 It was NOT a matter of education, money or reputation.  He was completely ABOVE BOARD in everything that he did.  He was a man who could be depended upon every time.

 His wife, Lois, his children and all his friends, are surely going to miss him.  I know I feel a very severe loss.

 73 Chuck, I know that I shall see you again.  I will hear that fifty word a minute code some quiet night, myself, not too long from now.  SK