Tom Ogle, KE4WFJ, SK

It's with great sadness I report that one of my closest friends, Tom Ogle, KE4WFJ passed away this morning after a brief fight with cancer. He was 52.

He is known to many in the Knoxville ham community, from APRS, chasing high-altitude balloons, DFing QRMers on some repeaters, bike tours, Field Days, and as an NCS for SKYWARN.

Tom (right) with me at Field Day in 2010

I hadn't been in touch with him for a few weeks but invited him to come up this past Friday for SKYWARN Recognition Day but had not heard back from him. I didn't think it was anything serious, but he apparently kept his illness a secret from even his closest friends.
He only found out last Saturday (Dec. 1) that he had Stage 4 cancer that had spread rapidly in his body, and was given just 6-8 weeks. It ravaged him so fast I don't know if it could have been caught early enough, because he claimed he didn't feel any symptoms until a few weeks ago. I was contacted at 7:30 this morning with the terrible news.

He loved ham radio and he was always wanting to help whenever possible. He was also a great friend. A few years ago when I had a falling out with another ham, he was one of a handful who stood by me from the beginning and reminded me what a true friend could be.

Here is his obituary.

RIP Tom. I miss you already.  ..._._

Commodore 64 making a comeback (sort of)

Some of you had one growing up in the 80's, many hams bought them for packet well into the late 90's and early 2000's. I myself bought one at Dayton in 1998 but never was able to get it to work (what a waste of $15).

Yet for it's time, this was not only state of the art, it was the best thing going (if you couldn't afford and Apple IIe). The Commodore 64 was THE computer to have for many. We had several in high school and used them for everything from video games (can you say, Defender of the Crown?)to learning about math.

Well, if you yearn for the days of yesteryear when this "compact" system was the rage, then today's you're lucky day (actually the end of April). Commodore USA has the retro-style Commodore 64 coming out with more of today's technology built in.

Say goodbye to the 1 MHz MOS 6510 and whopping 64 kB of RAM and say hello to 1.8GHz dual processor, 2-4 Gigs of DDR3 RAM, HDMI out, optional blu-ray, and USB. Sorry, looks like wi-fi's not built-in...

Windows can be installed, but the system doesn't come with it. Ubuntu Linux will be shipped with the unit and Commodore's proprietary COS 1 will be available sometime later in the year.

Check out the NY Times post about it here.

Lessee...LOAD"A*Z",8,1...