Bruce Gary passed away Easter Suday 4/4/2021 after an extended illness. A previous call was a W6 from the 1960's (exact call lost to time) then he got back into the hobby in the 1990's with AF6IN but he wanted a vanity call and found W6BWG which he referred to as the "Big Wooly Gorilla". Bruce accomplished many things in his long life, including building fuel dragsters, operating as captain of a fishing boat on dozens of trips out to sea (think tuna?) and operated a small vessel through the Panama Canal. He was registered to operate one of the largest supertankers in the world where he installed antennas for marine communications. His firm Gary Engineering had contracts with Raytheon for the FCC type accepted linear model RAY-1000, using the 4CX1000A it covered fixed frequency bands that were switch selectable for select HF freqs. Bruce was one of the first Eimac customers to be sent a prototype 8877 tube for evaluation around 1969. In the 70's Bruce designed and built a satellite control amlifier using the 8877 at around 235MHz for a critical government requirement and delivered it ahead of schedule. In the late 70's into the 80's he owned Valley Communications in Lancaster CA and installed repeaters in numerous sites including one in area 51 in New Mexico. Never really retiring, Bruce built autotune 20 kW linear amplifeirs for export and spent time in the Middle East installing them. Will miss that booming signal on 20M using his Vee beam located on his property once used to grow melons alongside the desert mansion he had built when he was in his "hay days". Bruce leaves a wife in Belarus. 73 de W6MTF
