W6TC - SK

George Milton Welles Badger, W6TC - SK

February 22, 1925 - November 15, 2009




George and I worked together at Eimac. He was a pleasure to work with......actually quite fun at times and he was instant friends with anyone who held an amateur radio license. We kept in contact over the years and I will miss him.

George may have not set the original policy at Eimac, but he certainly encouraged "giving" power grid tubes as "samples" to engineers who held a ham license. I passed along many pairs of 3-500Z tubes, 4CX250's and quite a few 8877's at no charge. We knew that the "sample" tubes were going into a ham amplifier, but perhaps that engineer might someday incorporate an Eimac/Varian product into a "company" design.

He additionally arranged to silver plate tank circuit coils at no charge to amplifier builders who would mail them to the Eimac facility.

Some of you older hams may remember an Eimac tube ad on the back cover of QST in the 1970's. The ad pictured George, who was the Marketing Manager at the time, sitting at a desk with a ham transceiver and his call letters painted on a 20 meter cavity visible in the background. The two million watt Eimac tube being promoted caused quite a stir in the amateur community and the ARRL and Eimac decided to pull the ad. We thought it was a clever joke, while some members of the amateur community believed that we were promoting the use of two million watt amplifiers in the ham band. Only King Hussein, JY1, of Jordan could have afforded it. Hi Hi.

Here is what his family had to say:

George Milton Welles Badger grew up in Berkeley , California , where he attended University High School before being drafted into the Army in 1943. George was in Patton’s 3rd army at the Battle of the Bulge, and then served as Technical Sergeant in with the 89th Infantry Signal Corps in Europe .



After the war, George returned to California and attended UC Berkeley. He was a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity, Colonel in the ROTC and President of the Amateur Radio Club. George graduated from Berkeley in 1951 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He was recruited out of college to work with Professor E.O. Lawrence on developing a color television tube. He then went to work as a design engineer for EIMAC, then later as Product Manager and Marketing Director. When EIMAC was acquired by Varian, George worked in the microwave tube division. After Varian, George became President of Svetlana Electron Devices, then later worked as Vice President of Business Development of CPI Econco. He holds seven patents for microwave tube and circuit design, as well as an Emmy Award for the invention of a special vacuum tube used for UHF television broadcast.



George’s lifetime passion was Amateur Radio with the call letters W6TC. He was originally licensed as W6RXW at the age of 14 in 1939. George was a member of the ARRL continuously for 69 years. His Amateur Radio interests included building equipment, antennas and working DX. He published many technical articles in the amateur radio press. He was elected as a Fellow in the Radio Club of America, and held DXCC Honor Roll #1, 5BDXCC and 5BWAZ.



George was married to Nancy Naylor for 51 years. Nancy is a Stanford alum, and their first date was the Big Game. George and Nancy were married in 1958. They lived in Portola Valley and had three children, Deborah Badger Denny (married to Scott Denny), Carol Marie Badger and John Cunningham Badger (married to Tine Normann). They also have four grandchildren, Ryan Thomas Denny, Lindsay Marie Denny, Natasha Normann Badger and Christopher Normann Badger.



George was enthusiastic, warm, sincere and always made people feel good with his charming smile and contagious laugh.



Contributions in memory of George can be made to the Stanford University Medical Center , Department of Immunology, 2700 Sand Hill Road , Menlo Park , CA 94025

 

Sad to hear of Geoge's passing...He was a great engineer and ham... When I had not contacted him in a while, I used to deliberately call him by Ted Crosby's name and he always took it serious and would explain my error.
He always was a serious inventor and a charming person...
.Ham Radio is deminished by has passing...
Good Bye old friend.God Bless... Jim K6LM

 

73 and TNX, George!

Never met George...across the (Monterey) Bay and generations apart. But I saw his recent QST article on the ingenious W6TC loop, especially the 160M usage as a large rotatable, terminated directional RX loop. Loved the QST article, and I recommend it to anyone considering low-band antennas. I had looked forward to meeting George someday. 73 and rest in peace, George, and prayers for you and your family.

 

sorry We will miss you

Our heartfelt condolences to his family

May God give them the strength to bear the great loss.


It was a pleasure to work George on the bands many times years ago .
sorry we will not hear W6TC on the bands again .
He will be dearly missed all over the world.

It was nice to know about his achievement over the years .
I am sure his spirit will guide us and our signals as he did when alive .
GOD BLESS His Family and May his kind soul rest in peace .

Kumar
VU2BGS

 

I knew the original holder of that call, Ted Crosby. I build an HBR-16 receiver, and Ted was so very helpful with questions I posed to him. After he passed, I wondered what would happen to his call, and eventually saw it had been reassigned to George. That famous call could not have gone to a more deserving man, another great contributor to the amateur radio hobby. I hope eventually however ends up with the callsign in the future reflects back and realizes the great gentlemen who have held it before. Rest in peace, George. And thanks for all your contributions!

 

W6TC

Sad to hear of George's passing and condolences to his family.I didnt know him personally but had the pleasure to qso with George 5 times on cw.Nicky/Ei9JF.