Re: [PLUG] Sad News

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

The Baofengs are under $25 now! They've got a spectacularly bad UI and
the manual is even worse, but aside from that they're a perfectly
cromulent beginner's radio.

Someone said that Jim played a role is getting the weekly Saturday
morning OMIK net on the Phil-Mont repeater. I've only listened a few
weeks but I've already learned a lot about radios and life in general
from (I think it's Cliff?) who runs that net. I even did my first POTA
last weekend when I joined the net from the little township park next
to my building. I don't think it's an officially listed park, but a)
I'm not going to let The Man tell me what is and isn't a "park", b)
Emlen Tunnell, the park's namesake, played a small but important role
in Black history and so it seemed fitting, and c) I didn't realize
there even was an official list of parks.

I think maybe what Jim really was was a tinkerer. There sure is a lot
of stuff to tinker with in ham radios!

On Sat, Aug 05, 2023 at 10:41:31AM -0400, Keith C. Perry via plug wrote:
> ( Walt, congrats on your ticket !! ) 
> 
> I met Jim right around the same time I joined PLUG (2014) at the FOSSCON that year. I was also getting back into radio but my Yaesu VX-5r was having issues so of course Jim being the ambassador he was for the hobby, was like "just get a Baofeng!... they're only $35... get two !!". I talked to him for quite a long time that year and every year I attended. Like most radio clubs in the area I think many of us at OMIK were acquainted with Jim too. He helped me promote the PLUG Fusion (YSF) room on digital as well which is something that I probably would not have done without his encouragement. 
> 
> He was Linux guy but he REALLY was a ham. I'm going to miss that energy in person and on the air. Jedi Jim... silent key but forever part of the force. 
> 
> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
> Keith C. Perry (N3QQZ), MS E.E. 
> Managing Member, DAO Technologies LLC 
> (O) +1.215.525.4165 x2033 
> (M) +1.215.432.5167 
> [ http://www.daotechnologies.com/ | www.daotechnologies.com ] 
> 
> 
> From: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> 
> Cc: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> 
> Sent: Saturday, August 5, 2023 3:13:31 AM 
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Sad News 
> 
> I am KC3JSO directly because of Jim. The radio waves are a little quieter without AJ3DI. He will be missed. 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 20:36 Walt Mankowski via plug < [ mailto:plug@lists.phillylinux.org | plug@lists.phillylinux.org ] > wrote: 
> 
> 
> I have some sad news to share -- Jim Fisher, aka jedijf, passed away 
> suddenly on Tuesday. Some more recent members of PLUG may know Jim 
> best because he was the person who supplied FOSSCON with bagels every 
> year. Aside from that Jim wasn't directly involved much in PLUG in 
> recent years but was one of our core members in the early years. Many 
> of us who met Jim back then remained friends with him all these 
> years. He was a enthusiastic support of Linux, open source, and 
> tinkering in general. 
> 
> One reason Jim's involvement in PLUG lessened is that he became 
> involved in the Philadelphia area amateur radio community, and served 
> as the president of the Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club for many years 
> until his death. He brought the same sense of camaraderie and 
> enthusiasm to that group as he did to PLUG. It was through Jim and a 
> few other folks in PLUG that I started looking into ham radio. I 
> passed my tech and general exams in June (callsign KC3WHU) and there's 
> absolutely no way I'd have done it without Jim's encouragement to 
> "play radio". 
> 
> Jim's funeral is Tuesday morning. PLUG North is scheduled for Tuesday 
> night. Since we don't have anything else scheduled, I thought we could 
> honor Jim's memory by doing a presentation on open source for ham 
> radio. I'm still learning all this myself, so anything I put into the 
> presentation will be definition be for novices. I'm going to announce 
> it on the philmont mailing list too, so some folks from that group 
> might be on the Jitsi call too. 
> 
> Then if anyone's interested, every Tuesday night at 8 PM philmont does 
> something called "Digital Education Net for newbies" (DENn). I've only 
> attended a few so far, and they've all been about using radios as 
> "modems" to transfer data between computers. You'll need a radio and a 
> license to transmit anything, but they also have a Zoom channel where 
> you can watch how the instructor is using the programs. And to be 
> honest the radios aren't doing much work. All the fancy signal 
> processing is happening inside an open source program called "fldigi", 
> and it works off of any audio signal. I've gotten it to work by 
> holding my radio up to my webcam speaker. It's kind of cool, in a "I 
> can't believe this actually works!" kind of way. 
> 
> So anyway, I'll aim to finish my presentation before 8, then anyone 
> who's still interested can hop over to the DENn zoom feed. That 
> usually lasts about 9 or 9:15. 
> 
> Jim was an amazing person, and all of us who knew him were devastated 
> when we heard the news yesterday. I hope Tuesday's meeting will help 
> carry on his legacy of introducing new users to the world of ham 
> radio. 
> 
> Walt 
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