[CW] "Keys to Good Code" - Bob Shrader, W6BNB (SK)

[David J. J. Ring, Jr.]

"Keys to Good Code" by Bob Shrader, W6BNB (SK)Originally appeared in “73 
Amateur Radio Today” - March 1999

Photo of R/O Bob Shrader the very day before his death at 98 years, see 
how his eyes sparkle when he wears his USMM cap! 73 OM BV SK RIP

w6bnb-20120410.jpg

Starting at the age of 10 by building crystal radio sets, he began the 
pursuit of his lifelong passion for wireless radio communication and 
electronics which began while on a cruise to Hawaii with his parents in 
1923. The ship's radio operator, a man from Sebastopol, Earl Wohler, 
invited Bob up to the ship's radio room. Thus began a lifelong 
friendship that lasted many decades until Earl's passing. Upon 
graduation from high school, Bob obtained his amateur radio license, 
W6BNB, and became a licensed commercial radio operator. This was at the 
height of the Great Depression. Jobs were scarce, but he was hired on as 
a shipboard radio-telegraph officer for the Dollar Lines, something 
unheard of for someone so young. Over the next several years he sailed 
around the world six times and trans-Pacific many more. Oh, the stories 
he has told about adventures in exotic ports-of-call all around the 
globe. In 1939 Bob became a deputy sheriff in Alameda County in charge 
of radiotelegraph operations. He married the only love of his life, 
Dorothy Fox, in 1941. At the beginning of World War II he began teaching 
radio and electronics to cadets on Treasure Island. He was assigned the 
rank of Lieutenant in the U.S. Maritime Service and they relocated to 
King's Point, NY, where he instructed cadets at the U.S. Merchant Marine 
Academy. He returned to his sheriff's position at the end of the war, 
but soon found his calling teaching electronics at Oakland Central Trade 
School, later known as Laney College. Bob turned his teaching materials 
into one of McGraw-Hill's top selling textbooks, "Electronic 
Communications", published in 1959 and in continuous production through 
edition 6 in 1991. This book was followed by many others, published in 
several languages. He retired and moved to Sebastopol in 1969 and built 
his home five miles west of town at the top of a hill among towering 
redwood groves. Bob continued authoring books and publishing numerous 
technical articles for national magazines. He joined the Freestone Fire 
Department in 1969 and quickly advanced from firefighter to Captain to 
Chief of the department. He orchestrated the merger of Freestone FD and 
Twin Hills FD in 1978 and served as President of the Twin Hills 
Executive Board after that. In 1997 he wrote and published "Fire 
Fighting, How It's Done". Bob was the founder and member of local, 
national and international radio organizations, and the recipient of 
awards and honors too numerous to list. At the age of 97 he researched 
and wrote "A Freestone Area Story". He was active and alert until his 
final day. The photo above was taken one day prior to his passing. You 
could see the sparkle in his eyes the moment he put on his old Merchant 
Marine officers cap. There will never be another like him.
73

DR
N1EA

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