Thanks, Roy, for the warm words about my connection with the QFH on the wx
spacecraft. My work in that area was a love affair, and I was just lucky to be
in the right place at the time the space exploration was just taking off.

I'm also lucky about the hurricane situation in Florida. My only damage was
losing one panel of screening around my pool. My son Bill, W2WM, has moved into
his new house, also in DeLand where I live, and he had no damage at all there.
But his house in W Palm Beach, that he is putting up for sale, suffered
extensive damage to the roof, causing leaks. However, FEMA came to his rescue by
placing a tarp over the house, covering the entire roof until it can be
repaired. I give FEMA a lot of credit for the terrific work they're doing to
help the survivors of those terrible storms.

Walt

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 20:06:16 -0700, Roy Lewallen wrote:

I hadn't realized that when my GPS got me out of a bit of a jam on my
most recent backpacking trip, I had Walt to thank (among others of
course) -- the GPS receiver uses a quadrifilar helix antenna. Thanks, Walt!

Walt also gets credit for an important role in developing the weather
satellites which bring us such benefits as early warning of the
hurricanes that recently went through Florida. I hope your house in
DeLand came through ok, Walt!

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Walter Maxwell wrote:

. . .
I performed the original research that led to the use of the QFH as the primary
radiators on all TIROS-N, NOAA polar orbiting satellites. As the lead engineer
at RCA Astro's antenna laboratory, I measured the radiation patterns and
terminal impedances on more than 1000 different electrical and mechanical
configurations of the QFH antenna. Of those many patterns one was chosen for the
NOAA satellites based on consistant, continous, solid contact with all ground
stations from the time the spacecraft was 10 degrees above the horizon.
. . .