I had no idea Al was a silent key.
I am he was a good man, and he was
one of my first exposures to Amateur Radio.
Al was a real stalwart of the 40m band for many years and was one of the true gentleman of Ham radio.He will be missed by all his 40m pals and his VK mates.
Ah, yes, THAT 40 meter signal. Al designed and built a 40 meter, 3-el Yagi--then wrote a constuction article about it. It looked like it was built of 6" pipe and sat on top of a 70' pyramidal tower. As I recall his site, it had a downslope to the west through south. No wonder he was loud on 40--especially into VK.
73 my friend!