The following is from the Wed, Mar 2 05, edition of the Washington Post:
Hershowitz, Irvin: On Sunday, February 27, 2005, IRVIN HERSHOWITZ of Arlington VA, a licensed radio amateur for over 65 years (W3HQG). Internment services will be held on Thursday, March 3, 10:30 a.m. at Washington Hebrew Congregation Cemetery, SE Washington, DC. Arrangements entrusted to Edward Sagel Funeral Direction, Rockville, MD 301-217-9400.

There was also a separate "regret" acknowledging Irv's death posted by the officers and members of the Samuel Gompers - Benjamin Franklin Lodge #45 of the FAAM (Masons).

Here is W3HQG's Hamshack. This pic was taken by Steve [N3VAR] while visiting Irv. According to Steve's note, Irv's rigs are to his right. His 2 meter rig does real well from Arlington, VA to Baltimore. He gets on a net with Steve every morning. Being visually impaired, his world is ham radio.

Irv passed away after a long illness. Services were held on March 3 at the Washington Hebrew Congregation Cemetery, SE Washington, DC. Irv had been a member of QCWA and Cbapter 91 since February 1995; in 2003, he was awarded a certificate from QCWA honoring the 65 years since he was first licensed as an amateur radio operator.

Irv, who had been blind since birth, used amateur radio as his main link to the outside world. He was a regular participant in several HF and VHF nets, including the daily Before Breakfast Club (BBC) net on 3.973 MHz and Chapter 91's Sunday morning net on 146.79 MHz. Joe Herrmann, W4LBL, noted recently that when he was in charge of the repeaters belonging to the Northern Virginia FM Assocation (NVFMA), Irv was one of the best control operators he had.

In 1998, Irv expressed a desire to get back on the air after his move into The Jefferson, a Marriott senior-living condominium community, in Arlington, VA. With the cooperation of the local management and the building engineer at the Jefferson, Chapter 91 formed a team to help make Irv's dream come true.

After surveying the rooftops of the 21-story building and possible routes for coax to Irv's 3rd floor room, the design team, consisting of Jack Kelleher, W4ZC (SK), Terry Hines, N4ZH, and Jim Wilcox,W3WV, came up with a proposal to erect for Irv a horizontal multi-band (80 through 10 m) antenna from W9INN (SK), a vertical Diamond tri-band (2m through 70 cm) antenna, and a Diamond discone antenna for wideband monitoring. A separate run of RG-213 cable was made from the Polyphasor impulse suppressor on the 21st floor for each antenna to Irv's operating position to make switching between the antennas simple and reliable. While the loss in the cable was significant over such a long run, it was hoped that the height of each antenna, good antenna matching at the transceiver, and the power of Irv's rig would be sufficient to give him a good on-air signal, and that proved to be the case.

The antennas and their masts were erected by two professionals, Wayne Thomas and Greg Ketterman, from United States Tower Services, Ltd., a company owned by a good friend of Irv's and later a member of Chapter 91, Norm Jeweler, W3NRS.

Chapter 91 members Al Cammerata, W3AWU, and Dick Rucker, KM4ML, routed the three coax cables down from these antenna to Irv's operating position. W3WV and KM4ML tuned the HF antenna and made sure that the three-band vertical was loading properly. Last fall, John Reiser, WQ4L and Vic Culver, W4VIC, along with W3WV and KM4ML pitched in to make some repairs to Irv's antenna farm which had served Irv pretty well for about 7 years.