Fred passed away on Monday, March 20th, of a cerebral hemmorage. Fred was a kind and caring individual who was a dedicated QRP operator. As a new ham to San Antonio, Fred called me on a regular basis to remind me of various hamfests and swapmeets. We'd get up early on Saturday mornings and venture to locations all over South Texas. Fred was a truly selfless individual who exemplified the best of ham radio. We will all miss him.
Fred will be deeply missed.
One of my favorite activities in amateur radio is going on backpacking trips, and
trying to contact friends back in central
Texas from whereever I'm at. I had the
pleasure of having Fred answer one of my
calls last fall when I was backpacking in
the Guadalupe Mtns in west Texas. It was
characteristic of Fred to be enthusiastic
about the interests of others.
Fred also was a presenter at the QRP Forum
at Austin Summerfest, and had a gift for
delivering presentations on practical
topics that were useful to everyone in the
room.
He will be deeply missed.
A few years back, I had a series of email exchanges (20 or so) with Fred on the Ten Tec Argosy. He was a real gentleman and was very helpful in finding some accessories that I was looking for at that time. I just re-read those emails again. Have you ever had a really good QSO with someone and you pause afterwards and say "that was fun"? I would consider these emails to be the same as one of those really good QSOs.
Fred Bonavita K5QLF went sk 3/20/06 from a
stroke. Fred may be remembered by many as W5QJM and had been Editor of the ARCI QRP
Quarterly in years past, and was
also on the BoD some years ago. Fred can
also be remembered as the author of the
first Hotwater Handbook for the HW-7 and
HW-8 Heathkit QRP rigs. Fred generously
turned over the profits from the sale of
the manual and the copyrites to the
ARCI QRP Club as an income producer for the
organization.
A strong advocate of QRP, he will be missed by all of us, and especially his friends.
73 and farewell Fred.
Ray, W5XE
I have known Fred for many years from our common love of low power operations and antennas, and we often emailed back and forth on some project or the other one of us was working on. He was always ready and willing to answer any question or share any information, and I missed a recent opportunity to have lunch with him and regret it terribly. Until recently, I didn't know that we had both done stints as the editor of QRP Quarterly - he never mentioned it. He will be missed for his contributions to amateur radio and by all who knew him. Farewell and 72, Fred. Mike, k5wmg.
Having never met Fred, I wish to share an experience I had with him. I had written CQ in 1993 and Fred read the letter because he had noticed my Novice call, WN4WUQ. He took the time to write me a very nice letter telling me we had the same Novice call only he had the call 17 years before I did. He had my present call at one time also. He described his adventure getting his license in detail. My regret is not getting to meet him on the air. He sounded like an A-1 Operator.