AMSAT-UK

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AMSAT Pioneer Patrick J. A. Gowen, G3IOR, Silent Key

Posted: 01 Oct 2017 05:46 AM PDT
https://amsat-uk.org/2017/10/01/amsa...owen-g3ior-sk/

Pat Gowen G3IOR

Pat Gowen, G3IOR, of Norwich, Norfolk, passed away on August 17, 2017,
after a long illness. He was 85. The amateur-satellite world has lost one
of its true pioneers.

Ray Soifer, W2RS, writes:

Pat was a co-founder of AMSAT-UK, and was elected to the board of directors
of AMSAT-NA in 1974. He was also the longtime satellite columnist of
Practical Wireless, as well as a frequent contributor to The AMSAT Journal
and OSCAR News.

He was the first to work 100 DXCC entities via satellite (all LEOs), and
received Satellite DXCC No. 4 when his QSL cards arrived. Fluent in
Russian, Pat enjoyed conversing with the cosmonauts aboard MIR and ISS. He
and I made the first transatlantic QSO between two handheld transceivers,
in 1991.

More recently, Pat was the first to discover the “re-birth” of
AMSAT-OSCAR-7 when its battery returned to life in sunlight. In addition to
his work with AMSAT and satellites, Pat was a prominent HF operator and
DXer. He had confirmed QSOs with all DXCC entities and had also been a
member of the First Class CW Operators Club (FOC), as well as a leading
member of the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club. Literally hundreds of new
amateurs obtained their licenses as a result of Pat’s NARC training classes.
Pat Gowen G3IOR in radio shack circa 1968

Martin Sweeting, G3YJO, Chairman of AMSAT-UK and founder of Surrey
Satellite Technology, Ltd. (SSTL) remembered Pat this way:

If my memory serves me well, I first met Pat G3IOR sometime in the
mid-1970’s when I became interested in space and naturally amateur radio
satellites starting with OSCAR-6. In 1975, Pat was a founding member and
sometime Chairman of AMSAT-UK along with other stalwarts such as Roy
Stevens G2BVN, Arthur Gee G2UK and Richard Limebear G3RWL and had a strong
interest in not only the OSCAR series but also especially the RS satellites
from the then Soviet Union.

Starting in late 1973, Pat produced the first editions of OSCAR News as a
typed newsletter providing essential orbit tracking information for the new
OSCAR-6 satellite (at a time before easy access via the internet!) and
contributed more timely updates and observations via the AMSAT-UK 80-metre
net each Sunday morning along with a news round-up each month transmitted
by G3RWL. Pat attended and contributed to the early AMSAT-UK Colloquia at
Surrey.

In June 21, 2002 Pat surprised the AMSAT community by detecting CW signals
from the long-believed defunct OSCAR-7 satellite whose batteries had failed
in 1981 but came back to life after the batteries eventually went open
circuit enabling operations in sunlight to this day! Pat was passionate
about amateur radio, amateur satellites and the environment; he contributed
much over his long life to each of these and will be sadly missed.

Professionally, Pat was a biochemist, retired from the University of East
Anglia. He had also served as a magistrate in the Norfolk courts, the
youngest in England at the time. No mention of Pat would be complete
without noting his decades of work in cleaning up the beaches and waters of
his beloved Norfolk. He leaves his wife Norma, a noted landscape artist.

Source AMSAT News Service