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John B. 'Jack' Power Trenton, NJ QCWA # 1335 Chapter 5 |
First Call: W3AXU issued in 1931 Other Call(s): W2QFE
In Memory of John Power W2AXU
September 1915 to December 2006
John Power W2AXU became a silent key on 10 December 2006. W2AXU went by the name Jack. Jack was born on September 30, 1915 in Trenton, NJ. In 1932 at the age of 17 he was first licensed as W3AXU and has been continuously licensed ever since holding the following calls: W2QKE, EL8A and currently W2AXU.
Jack remarried in 1971 after the death of his first wife [Elizabeth]. He is survived by his XYL Florence WA2WYE, sons William and David (WB2VLA), and five grandchildren. Jack's stepson Joe Sell, Florence's son, passed away a short time before Jack.
Jack joined the Packrats about 1 year after the club formed in 1957 and was a past president of the Packrats. He was a past chairman of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the QCWA. Jack was a member of the Central States VHF Society.
Jack was an EE and graduated from Rutgers University. He worked for Western Union, Travelers Insurance and Sun Oil. During World War II he took a position at Princeton University and worked on war related projects. In 1948 Jack took an EE position at the U.S. Naval Air Development Center [Johnsville] in Warminster, PA, where he remained until his retirement in 1973.
Florence reminded me that Cheese Bits was assembled at their QTH. I know that Jack's son Dave (WB2VLA) was a printer for a number of years and had the club's old printing press at his home in the days before computers. Dave mentioned that Harry Stine W3CL was the editor at that time and they all met at the W2AXU QTH to get the paper out each month.
Looking back in my logs, that I could find, I first worked Jack in the January VHF contest in 1967. At that time a number of the Packrats used Barry rigs on 220 MHZ AM the 6360 output 2 Watts at best. I remember working Jack from Norristown PA to Trenton NJ on what he called snow flake bounce. I must have been real weak.
I consider Jack to be one of my early mentors as I developed my interests in VHF. Jack, W3CL, W3ZD and K3GAS are all now silent keys, along with other Packrats and Central States silent keys W2AZL, W2BOC and W6PO, and are all together now.
In 1969 Jack spurred my interest in attending the Central States VHF conference in Boulder, CO. The Central States formed in 1965 as an informal get together and Jack must have attended some of the early get-togethers. At the Central States, Jack and Florence would have lunch with Mel Wilson (W2BOC) and his wife and discuss radio propagation and Jack's Sun Spot project. At one of the lunches Jack was introduced to Ron K5LLL and his XYL Kitty K5KAT. They became close friends.
As it turned out Jack's birthday and mine were very close so we tried to get together for dinner over the PackRat VHF conference weekend along with Ron, Kitty and of course Florence.
Jack was also interested in photography and astronomy. Sometime in the late 70's he began to collect sunspot counts and took pictures of the spots, some of the data he collected was given to NCAR in Boulder, CO for publication to the Scientific Community.
This is my memory of W2AXU, a club member some of you may have never had a chance to meet. He was a good friend and mentor and will be missed by those who new him.
Bill Murphy, WØRSJ
