[Milsurplus] Bill Godbout. RIP

[Mark M]

Used to prowl through Bill Godbout’s  cluttered store at Oakland Airport’s North Field in the 1970s. It was adjacent to Stevens Paraloft, my parachute rigger Perry Stevens’ establishment. I could get my reserve chute inspected and repacked and go see what cool junk Bill had. Even though the place was almost total chaos, Bill knew what lay beneath and between  layers and layers of boxes. Prices were reasonable. Mostly power supplies, electronic components and computer stuff but occasionally some radio gear. Saw a few APR 4s there once. Also some solid state marine radio gear. 

I once asked if he had any CK 722s, the first commercial transistor. “No long leads ones but there are some early digital circuit boards under boxes of manuals over there that are loaded with soldered in CK 722s”. I dug a few boards out and took them over for pricing. “A buck per board”
said Bill. 

The only exception I saw to his reasonable pricing was for ferrite core memory frames. He charged a lot for them. Thought they’d be valuable some day. 

Bill sometimes had ridiculously huge quantities of parts with very limited appeal such as many cases of the 24 volt equivalent of the 047 incandescent pilot light bulb. 

So sorry to see that he died in the fire that destroyed Paradise CA. 

Rest In Peace Bill. 

Mark
AF6IM