Rick will be missed and I will never forget him.  I've told the story in
detail before on here so I won't repeat it in detail again.  I met Rick when
I was a novice.  It was in the middle of the night, and after sending bk a
dozen times, since he and his friend were almost five KHZ below my novice
crystal frequency, one of them heard me.  They were rolling along at 40
words per minute and I was fascinated.  I could copy at 25 WPM at the time
so when they came to my rock frequency, they slowed down and I talked to
them for an hour.  Rick and I became friends from that day on and talked
many times on SSB and CW on different bands over the years.  Then, when the
internet rolled around, we emailed back and forth often.  Rick was not only
a good CW operator and ham, but he was a good person.  He was always quick
to help and answer questions and he knew a lot about computers and software.
He emailed me when he started his cancer treatments to tell me what was
going on.  I will miss him.  Although he has passed away, he will always be
in my heart and I will never forget that first CW contact we had together
and how nice he was to me as a young 14 year old novice struggling to get my
code speed up.

Phil.
k0nx