[EIDXA] W0XO SK

[Jonathan via EIDXA]

Good morning, My grandfather, Leslie V. Johnson passed away on Aug 22, 2014 peacefully. I mention this here because a google search yielded a post mentioning his death. At 98 he had lived a full live and had no qualms about powering down by then. He worked for Collins Radio for 40 years and received a Bird Wattmeter and watch with a plaque as a commemorative gift. Grandpa Johnson, as I call him, was meticulous in his notes, and fortunately some of those copious jottings were preserved for posterity. He was on the air with me just weeks before his death; we had a sked on 40M for the last few years that we kept sporadically between St. Paul or Buffalo, MN and his Sharwood Dr. NE QTH in Cedar Rapids. Grandpa ran a 45' sloper into a tree tuned with a homebrew pi tuner from a TS450S Grandma bought him upon his retirement from Collins. (He never could afford a Collins radio, but many of his homebrew projects include Collins parts from their surplus sales.) Les was a very self-effacing man, even asking me to take down his QRZ.com information and photo I had been carefully curating. Now my house is full of his homebrew creations, a simple hollowstate QRP transmitter and regen receiver, and a dozen or more keys of all sizes and shapes. I also was bequeathed his callsign, which I use remembering that he was a real ham. I will always try to reach his level of organic knowledge of radio electronics, but will always be an "appliance assembler and modifier" in comparison. He also encouraged me and my mother to follow in the hobby, she is KB0LOK now living in Borlange, Sweden, and I am W0XO (formerly KC7FYS, 7J1AWL, XV2OC) living in St. Paul, MN. 
Thank you for mentioning him on this list. Grandpa generally eschewed associations with local hams in his last decades, but he was constantly monitoring and knew of many of you as his radio brethren. Very best 73, Jonathan Haynes