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Friend : Clement L. (Pinky) Roberts (NX5R / W5ZPJ)

'Pinky' Roberts was W5ZPJ when I first knew him in the early 1970s (he later changed his call to NX5R). /// When we first met on-the-air (probably on 40 Meters SSB) I was a college student still living at home in San Marcos (between Austin & San Antonio) and Pinky was living in Port Lavaca (on the Texas coast). /// (The 1970s/80s were a 'busy time' for me as there were periods where I was off-in-school or off-in-the-Air-Force so my memories from that era are 'jumbled'.) /// From some on-line research I've learned that Pinky worked for ALCOA in Port Lavaca. Doing some reading-between-the-lines .... I'm thinking that Pinky was probably born about 1922 and, if so, he would have been reaching his 60s by the early 1980s. /// During the early period when I knew Pinky - he and his wife would take some time during the summer and go stay in a semi-camping situation on one of the creeks in the Texas hill country near Wimberley. /// It was during one of those stays when I went to see Pinky and what my mind's eye still shows me is a rural setting in the Texas hill country, a few miles out of Wimberly, on a crystal-clear creek with limestone cliffs on the other side. Pinky and his wife had a travel trailer that they lived-in and to give some additional space they had a roofed-over area (supported by wooden posts). Because the roofed-over area was open on three sides (with the trailer being on the 4th) Pinky used an old camping refrigerator as an enclosure for a Drake TR3 HF transceiver. When he wanted to operate Pinky would open the refrigerator door (the camping refrigerator was a little thing - probably only 2 1/2 feet tall by a couple of feet wide) and when he was finished he'd turn off the TR3 and shut-the-door .... so if an unexpected summertime rain shower came through the radio was shielded from the elements. /// Later Pinky and his wife moved to Wimberley (or nearby) but I didn't visit them then so no recollections. (By the mid 1980s I was living in the Dallas area and didn't get back to central Texas very often.) /// Pinky Roberts, NX5R/W5ZPJ, was a nice guy. /// (Doing a bit of background research on Pinky ... I found that the FCC database still provides some on-line information on his call. It says that his NX5R Call was granted on Apr 22, 1995 and expired on Apr 22, 2005. I got the date of Pinky's death from an on-line .PDF document that lists deceased members of the 7290 Traffic Net. That shows Pink's initials as 'C.C.' but the FCC database shows Pinky to have been 'Clement L. Roberts'.) /// (Paul Nix, WB5AGF; 16 June 2015)

Contributed by : Paul N. Nix (WB5AGF)

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Friend's CallsignNX5R / W5ZPJ
Friend's NameClement L. (Pinky) Roberts
Date DeceasedFeb 9, 1999
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