In Memoriam – K2RIW – Richard “Dick” Knadle POSTED ON: APRIL 27, 2020 POSTED BY: JAMES CAMPBELL https://limarc.org/in-memoriam-k2riw-richard-dick-knadle/ It is with great sadness for LIMARC and the amateur radio community to report to you the passing of Dick Knadle, K2RIW. For 38 years we have been blessed by the presence of someone who wanted nothing more than to teach others about all there was to know about electronics, ham radio, and just about anything else an inquiring mind would want to know. Dick was brilliant and all of us were covered by the light of learning that he cast upon us. There are no funeral arrangements at this time and in the present circumstances, much is uncertain. We will keep you informed. At some point, we believe there will be a memorial service for him when we can all be together. Our deepest condolences to the family.
Not To mention His Brilliant Electronic Background , Dick Was A Exceptional Antenna Designer, Especially on Vhf and Uhf Yagis. Certainly Will be Missed .. R.I.P. Dick Knadle K2RIW SK Jack K8JA
This is a huge, huge loss to amateur radio. I didn't know K2RIW, but I frequently listened to him on the Sunday night tech net on the W2VL repeater. He always had interesting things to say and I learned plenty. RIP
I first met Dick at AIL, where he was employed as an engineer, and have known him for at least 40 years. He was on the AIL-707 spectrum analyzer project and became a customer of mine. His "K2RIW" 19 element 70cm yagi design was about the best, and I had four of them in an H-frame back in the early to mid 80s. Wow, they worked better than anything on the market at the time. He had to fight his community (Dix Hills, NY) for years over his tower. I showed up at one of the Zoning Board hearings because I was in the area anyway, and only lived about 30 miles from there at the time. Several hams did, and we were his cheering section. He won. RIP, Dick.
Known Dick since 1965 [AIL] thru the 2 mter amp tripler design/dish to monitor moon landings,etc ......with him and k2OVS on Equnix {VT]..the tower fight he had with his town ,beyond belief ....yeh,Dick ran the 707 project.....RIP... Ed k2lck
A Well-Known VHF/UHF/Microwave Enthusiast and Mentor Dick Knadle, K2RIW, SK Dick Knadle, K2RIW, of Dix Hills, New York, has died. An ARRL Life Member, he was 80. Knadle was revered as a technical resource and mentor for the VHF/UHF/microwave community and was the 2010 ARRL Technical Achievement Award winner. His antenna and amplifier designs were widely copied. Knadle was a member of the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club (LIMARC) for nearly 40 years. He held a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering for RF communications from Pratt Institute and was Senior Staff Engineer at Airborne Instrument Labs from 1964 to 2000. For many years, he served as the net control station for the Tech Net on the LIMARC repeaters. http://www.arrl.org/news/well-known-vhf-uhf-microwave-enthusiast-and-mentor-dick-knadle-k2riw-sk ======= RESPECTFULLY,
Man I really learned so much from him on the tech net. He is the reason I started to play with balanced feeder and how I learned a ton of other things about how antennas and transmission line work. A ham legend.
I knew Jay K2OVS also. Were you also with AIL back in the day? I met Dick there several times but forget who else was involved. When were you operating from Equinox? One of my favorite haunts in the late 60s through about 1980 or so, operated there several times (usually multiop with others) and knew the Mutzes really well. Peter and Maureen took good care of us at the Skyline Inn.
I will always remember Dick, K2RIW because his RIW callsign was my initials (Robert I Wexelbaum). I never tried to get a vanity call but became W2ILP and found lots of ways to use ILP with my own phonetics. Isolated Lonely Pandemic would do for today. I disagreed with some of Dicks's opinions about automobile and aircraft recalls as well as his belief that fluttering birds in open cages on a moving vehicle would not reduce their Newtonian mass. Like Dick, I was interested in antenna design, and like Dick, I liked being a teacher. I taught transistor courses to Navy technicians, using a network analyzer to train Air Force ECM Operators, and a Calculus course for company technicians while at Loral as a field service engineer. When I worked for Collins Rockwell I taught a course on the repair of automatic antenna couplers to Israeli engineers. After being laid off by Grumman, the Dept of Labor suggested that I prepare to be a teacher. I went to Dowling College and earned an MS in Ed. This required getting experience working as a student-teacher. I could not get any high-school in Suffolk County that would give me a chance to be a student-teacher for free until I finally got a chance to work at LaSalle Military Academy in Oakdale, assisting an elderly Physics teacher. After graduating I got a job teaching at a vocational school but it did not last for long because it depended on getting funded by the federal govt and the students finding employment. To make a long story short Dowling College is now bankrupt and LaSalle has been disenfranchised due to conflicts of NYS laws, such as prohibiting students from carrying military sabers in schools where there are students from Mexico, Japan, and Korea, as well as coed classes of Catholic kids in grades 1 to 8 from Long Island. Here I have spoken too much about myself when I should be eulogizing Mr. Knadle. I think that we appreciated each other in more ways than most might understand. We wanted to teach and we did it without getting paid anything for our efforts. Yep... We were both good for nothing.
Yeh, I had a season pass to equinox in the earl sixties [$10]..OVS & I observed QRM from greyloch on the tv in the bar up there..
I just by chance checked the SK list today and saw an old friend Dick K2RIW SK I used a quad his famous 70cm antennas from FM16 in the late 70's -80's Also used his 432 amp. for years. I will have to go back into my very old logs of the early 60's to see when I may have worked Dick from my first QTH in Ithaca, NY early 60's (I was a kid lic. '58 @ 11 .
