John Gimpert, May 26, 2020. Age 97. Beloved husband of the late Evelyn for 70 years (May 20, 2020). John earned his first ticket as a teenager in 1940 while attending Detroit's Cass Technical High School. He served in the Army Air Corp during WWII as a radio operator on B17 crews in Africa, Europe and Asia. After the war, he worked as an electrical designer for General Motors for over thirty years. He was fortunate to have been retired for more years than he worked. A loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, he was devoted to his family and also found time for his two great passions, golf and ham radio, doing both well into his 90's. Working other stations as W8VMC his whole life, he was a dedicated CW operator who chased DX in his spare time and never consider my HT a real amateur radio
Applied and predicted to receive John’s old call! I promise to honor it. I’m a DXer, Contester and AM Op. As well as a pilot…fitting since he was a radio op on B-17’s 73 Dan WX5WX…future W8VMC
Very nice Dan, How cool is that? My father in law was a WWII airman and had that call for just about 80 years, and now it goes to a pilot. He would have been tickled pink to know that. I'll tell my wife to inform her siblings and I'll bet they'll be thrilled to hear about it. Out of curiosity, how'd you come up that call? Just poking around and stumbled across it or do the letters in the suffix have a particular meaning to you? Michael - W8MFW
