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![Previous (earlier) Story](/images/sty-down.gif ""Hello" Campaign Finale to Showcase Ham Radio's Past, Present and Future"){kind=small} Previous: "Hello" Campaign Finale to Showcase Ham Radio's Past, Present and Future |  Next: The Amateur Amateur: Three (or Four) Words About ARES |
Alan Kaul, W6RCL (SK) [Courtesy Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF] |
This photo was taken on a secondary highway in southern Kosovo. NATO planes attacked a Yugoslav army column during the Air War (March-May 1999) and scored direct hits on the tank in the foreground and the truck in the background. The site was inside the US Sector of Kosovo and Army munitions experts warned against walking off the road or exploring the inside of the tank because of the probability of unexploded ordnance. [Courtesy Alan Kaul, W6RCL] |
Kaul (also known as Sandpainter Silver Wolf) was involved with The YMCA of LaCanada/LaCrescenta. Here he is (back left) with the Y Indian Guides on a 1999 trip to the Santa Monica Air Museum. [Courtesy Alan Kaul, W6RCL] |
The 2005 Ham of the Year Alan Kaul, W6RCL, of La Canada Flintridge, California, died Friday, December 22 from complications of colon-rectal cancer. He was 64. First licensed as K7EHW in 1958 while still in high school, he was a founding member of the Shandle Park High School Radio Club. Kaul went on to work at NBC, covering such stories as the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, the Mt St Helens eruption, the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 and the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. He also spent two years covering O. J. Simpson's murder trial. During the hostage crisis, Kaul provided the only news on Amateur Radio coming from Iran. At a time when Iran's government had outlawed ham radio, he managed to interview an Iranian radio amateur who was operating despite the ban. He also received the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Television Journalism in 1997 for his role in producing NBC's coverage following the death of Mother Teresa.
Kaul is best known to radio amateurs for his work behind the scenes promoting the hobby. He wrote for and reported for Westlink Amateur Radio News, which later became Amateur Radio Newsline. In 1983, he became involved with and produced a 30 minute video, Amateur Radio's Newest Frontier, profiling Dr Owen Garriott, W5LFL; Garriot conducted the first manned Amateur Radio operation from space.
In 2003, Kaul teamed up with Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD, for Amateur Radio Today, perhaps the best known video on Amateur Radio. Released by the ARRL, in a two-day "sneak-peak" online session at the ARRL's Web site, it was downloaded over 800 times; since then it has been downloaded over 20,000 times. This video has been used by the ARRL in its dealings with Congress and other governmental regulators. It is also used by ordinary hams who are having trouble with zoning regulations or neighbors, and by ham clubs to explain the Amateur Radio Service to local governments. It was awarded the Chicago Film Festival's Award of Merit. Kaul also helped produce The ARRL Goes to Washington, which documented the documented the League's efforts to preserve Amateur Radio spectrum in the face of threats such as broadband over power line (BPL) Internet access.
Kaul was interested in many aspects of Amateur Radio, but he focused mainly on QRP, especially QRP CW contesting. He entered his first contest in 1985. In 2003, he helped establish the Hollywood Hills QRP Contest Club. He was also a member of the ARRL, the ARRL's Public Relations Committee, ARRL's A-1 Operator Club and was a CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame inductee (Class of 2006).
He held many foreign call signs as a result of traveling all over the world with NBC: F0FVR (France); G0/W6RCL (Great Britain); W6RCL/6Y5 (Jamaica); W6RCL/HH2 (Haiti), and JY9RL (Jordan). One of the best-remembered news contributions was his report on the death of His Majesty Al Hussein ibn Talal, JY1, King of Jordan.
To report the passing into history of the king who opened up Jordan to Amateur Radio, Kaul pulled out all of the stops. Working from an intimate knowledge of King Hussein and knowing the monarch's many ham radio friends, he created a remarkable reminiscence of the "man and his hobby" as seen through the eyes of those who knew him best. The commercial media (CNN, NBC, CBS and so on.) had the story of the passing of a great political leader. Because of Kaul, the world's radio amateurs will always remember JY1 as a human being who loved ham radio and was eager to use it as an educational tool to better the living standard of the people of the troubled nation that he ruled.
Dave Bell, W6AQ, said that Kaul "was first and foremost a very ethical and honest journalist. He had a good appreciation of 'truth telling,' and he was a wonderful writer. He wrote all the words Walter Cronkite said in Amateur Radio Today. He saved that video from oblivion by getting the right words to go with the footage. It was a terrific film because of the way he wrote it. In fact, Walter only changed one word in it, a sailing term -- I thought that was absolutely amazing."
According to Bell, Kaul was very interested in education. "I think Alan would like people to donate to the League in his name, especially the Education & Technology Fund. You would never meet anyone more giving than Alan. It was just his nature to be cheerful."
Kaul is survived by his wife Christine, their daughter Alexa and son Ryan, as well as two children from an earlier marriage, Scott and Karen. He had four grandchildren: Spencer, Austin, Jaclyn and Justin. Funeral arrangements are pending.
-- Additional reporting from Amateur Radio Newsline
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