| Walt Mankowski via plug on 5 Aug 2023 12:14:32 -0700 |
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| Re: [PLUG] Sad News |
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 > ___________________________________________________________________________ > Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- [ http://www.phillylinux.org/ | http://www.phillylinux.org ] > Announcements - [ http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce | http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce ] > General Discussion -- [ http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug | http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug ] > > > > > ___________________________________________________________________________ > Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org > Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce > General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > ___________________________________________________________________________ > Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org > Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce > General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug ___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug