W3NNA - April 11, 2014

---

Manuel Botelho Beavercreek, OH QCWA # 10656 Chapter 9

Manuel Botelho, W3NNA, 99, Silent Key: 11 April 2014.

First licensed 1932 as W1DKT at age 16 in his home state of Massachusetts.

After graduating from High School he went on to learn Radio Communication at the the RCA Institute in Boston. His parents, immigrants from the Azores, saw to it that he grew up bilingual. He later found work at the Radio Intelligence Division (part of the FCC).

During _WWII _he served in the United States Merchant Marine as a radio operator aboard the George Hawley. He was awarded the Merchant Marine Emblem, Atlantic War Zone Bar and Combat Bar with Stars. He was later stationed in Okinawa (KR6OB), then on Cyprus.

In 1947 the family settled in the DC area (call W3NNA).

In 2001 they moved to Ohio to be near his daughter and her family.

He was an avid ham radio operator and a member of the Quarter Century Wireless Association and Society of Wireless Pioneers Life Member and the Veteran Wireless Operators Association. and after the war worked with the government in intelligence & communications.

He loved DX... For many years he was running a schedule with a friend in Brazil. His most memorable QSO is one in the 1980s with father Moran in Katmandu. He is not a "contest man" but likes the rag chew type of QSO. He kept in touch with a group of 20 hams from work. Sadly, over the years, most became silent keys.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, April 21, 2014 at St. Luke Catholic Church, 1440 N. Fairfield Rd. Fr. Terry Schneider celebrant.

His family will receive friends at the church from 9:30 a.m. until the time of services on Monday, April 21.