J Rick Sohl
Jerry met me in my two way radio shop in Alpine, Texas in the late 1960s. I had my First Phone FCC license, but had not taken a ham radio exam yet. I had had just returned from my US Army service in 1968. He had family in Ft Davis that he visited and he told me he used to be in the two-way radio business in Dallas. He told me all the top two way radio technicians were ham radio operators and I needed to get my ham license, he gave me some code tapes to start learning the morse code. I was was designing a special device for a governmental agency at the time that was used to interface and link VHF repeaters with UHF fixed stations along the Texas and Mexico borders. Jerry helped me and gave me advice on my designs for the system. His help and over the next many years he encouraged me to design and build special equipment to fit a number of agencies needs. He helped me become a better engineer and git me started in ham radio that allowed me to build and test my devices using actual radio networks in Texas and New Mexico. His friendship and mentoring is something that I treasure. I joined the Dallas Chapter #41 of the QCWA, because of him and another man John King K5CDV who both helped that chapter help other hams help their community. Both of them helped me become a ham and a radio engineer a career over 60 years that I am still doing at 80 years old today. May God Bless Jerry and all his family.