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Friend : James "HANK" A. Scharf (W6SKC)

James "Hank" A. Scharfe Jr. Was my father - He was owner and inventor of Dovetron Equipment and lived in Nogales AZ.

Contributed by : Jim Scharfe (W6SKC)

Friend : James "HANK" A. Scharf (W6SKC)

Geez, I can believe there have not been previous posts here. I was very sad to hear of Hank's demise, just as I was going into chemo treatment for Hodgkins disease. Hank was a unique individual whose viewpoint I really enjoyed. Swapped some radios with him, and have been bidding on Dovetron stuff that shows up on eBay just to have one of Hank's units. Was introduced to Hank when I answered a yellow sheet ad and carried on with phone calls and correspondence for several years. Put his noise blankers in my KWM-2 and the 75S-3 that I bought from him and found them a great help. I had been getting sick for a couple of years and had largely lost interest in hobbies and was not keeping in touch with people. Had not heard from Hank in some time and then find out he's gone. He is missed. And his humor. Clay W0FS

Contributed by : Clay Conard (W0FS)

Friend : James "HANK" A. Scharf (W6SKC)

I thought I posted a story before, but today, when I
looked in here, my spot was 'blank'.

I met Hank at Dayton, many years back, and the two of us
put away a lot of Scotch Whiskey while 'solving the world's
problems!' He was a great guy, and after W8CQ sold the
RTTY Journal, Hank started picking up the tab for the
RTTY Hospitality Room at the Imperial House, North,
motel. He never 'sold' things there. I don't even know if
he used it as a tax write off, since he just came to see his
friends, and 'swap lies'. He did occasionally bring
prototype items, but did not put them on display in the
Hospitality Room. He would invite a few friends to his
room, across the hall, to see things. Again, he never used
Dayton to sell his products. He didn't need to since he
was always behind in orders. If he could have doubled his
production capacity, he would probably still been behind,
all of those years.

Every US Navy and Coast Guard ship, every US military
base, here and abroad, all had from 5 to 50 Dovetron TUs.
And, in addition, US Embassies, the FBI, NSA, CIA, and the
rest of the 'alphabet soup' of US agencies also used the
various versions of the MPC-1000 basic design.

He told a group of us one evening that several major
electronics manufacturers wanted him to make the
Dovetron TUs with their name on them, so they could sell
complete communications systems. He never did this, as
far as I know.

He also confessed to hiding four diodes under IC sockets,
to discourage people from 'reverse engineering' his
designs! I don't even know if they showed on the
diagrams.

A few months before he passed away, I had a six hour
phone conversation with him, and we covered a multitude
of topics. I look back at those phone calls, and often wish
that I had made tape recordings of them.

I would like to get in touch with Jim Scharfe, his son, if
anyone knows how to find him.

'Bye, Hank! You are missed by a lot of us.

73,

Ralph Irish - W8ROI

Contributed by : Ralph Irish (W8ROI)

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Friend's CallsignW6SKC
Friend's NameJames "HANK" A. Scharf
Date DeceasedApril 2002
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