[SFDXA] ARLX003 Hollywood Producer, ARRL Patron Dave Bell, W6AQ (SK)

[William Marx]

> SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX003
> ARLX003 Hollywood Producer, ARRL Patron Dave Bell, W6AQ (SK)
> 
> ZCZC AX03
> QST de W1AW  
> Special Bulletin 3  ARLX003
> From ARRL Headquarters  
> Newington CT  May 16, 2016
> To all radio amateurs 
> 
> SB SPCL ARL ARLX003
> ARLX003 Hollywood Producer, ARRL Patron Dave Bell, W6AQ (SK)
> 
> Award-winning Hollywood producer and ARRL benefactor Dave Bell,
> W6AQ, of Encinitas, California, died on May 13. He was 84 and had
> been a radio amateur for 65 years. Bell had been suffering from
> cancer and was in hospice care. An ARRL Life Member and a former
> chair of the ARRL Public Relations Committee, Bell directed Amateur
> Radio Today and produced several other ham radio-related promotional
> videos and films, starting with The Ham's Wide World, a TV
> documentary filmed in black and white.
> 
> "If I have a claim to fame in Amateur Radio, it's probably that I
> produced the first television documentary about ham radio that got
> worldwide distribution, and then I made several others before I
> 'retired' from the ham radio film/video hobby-within-a-hobby and got
> busy making a living producing TV movies, specials, and
> documentaries for all of the networks including HBO and Showtime,
> and made a couple of theatrical feature films - Nadia and The Long
> Walk Home," Bell recounted on his QRZ.com profile. He started TV's
> Unsolved Mysteries, and he received an Emmy Award in 1985 for
> Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special, Do You Remember Love. Bell
> chronicled his filmmaking and his Amateur Radio and professional
> lives in a memoir, World's Best Hobby.
> 
> Last year, Bell and his wife Sam, W6QLT (she's a quilter), donated a
> signed Andy Warhol print to the ARRL. The artwork - "Myths: Superman
> 1981" - sold at auction last fall for $150,000. The proceeds are
> being used to create "The Dave Bell, W6AQ, Endowment Fund" to
> benefit the League.
> 
> Bell also produced The World of Amateur Radio, This is Ham Radio,
> and Moving Up to Amateur Radio. He directed the Amateur Radio Today
> video in 2002. The short presentation about emergency preparedness
> was narrated by former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite,
> KB2GSD (SK), written by Alan Kaul, W6RCL, and produced by Bill
> Pasternak, WA6ITF (SK) and Bill Baker, W1BKR. Bell and Pasternak
> also created The DIY Magic of Amateur Radio in 2011, and he
> co-produced The ARRL Goes to Washington, also voiced by Cronkite.
> Working on his own, Bell filmed videos for the World Radiosport Team
> Championship (WRTC) events in 2000 in Slovenia (The Ham Radio
> Olympics) and in 2002 in Finland.
> 
> A DXer, casual contester, and a past president of the Southern
> California DX Club, Bell was a frequent speaker at Amateur Radio
> gatherings. He was named the 1984 Ham of the Year at Dayton
> Hamvention, and, in 2003, the ARRL presented Bell with its first
> Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on films and videos about
> Amateur Radio. In 2011 he was named to the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of
> Fame.
> 
> Heil Sound Ltd's Bob Heil, K9IED, called Bell "one of the great
> ones." Heil said Bell's "great smile and laughter" and his
> "generosity to the hobby" would be missed, "but most of all, we will
> miss his spirit."
> NNNN
> /EX