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Colorado QRP Club, Inc.

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Silent Key

Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB Gabe A. Sellers III passed away from natural causes, in his home in Northglenn, Colorado on March 21, 2011. He was 61. Gabe was born June 4, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey to Gabe and Marie Sellers. He was raised in Summit, and went on to earn his BSEE at Virginia Tech (then known as Virginia Polytechnic Institute), and his MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California-Berkeley. He served two years in the US Army, 1972-1974, aiding students in the computer lab at the U. S. Military Academy.

Gabe's siblings provided the following:

Gabe worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories (later to become Alcatel-Lucent) for 29 years. Gabe had many different projects during his career. One of those projects was developing data communication modules that allowed terminals to connect to mainframe computers some significant distance away. These data modules were used by applications that later evolved to using Internet for connections. Gabe retired in 2001.

Gabe was a licensed amateur radio operator, and he collected old vacuum tube radios whenever he had a chance. Gabe was often seen at swap fests with an acquired old radio under his arm. Gabe was a co-founding member of a club dedicated to low power amateur radio operation, the Colorado QRP Club.

He was known for his thrice weekly jogs around his Northglenn neighborhood, having done it for many years. He was proud that he jogged over 60,000 miles during his lifetime. He fought a good fight, for 32 years, against diabetes.

Gabe was a kind man, and a unique and brilliant man. He was our brother, known to immediate family as Buddy. He was predeceased by his parents. He was loved, and will be missed by his brother Bill Sellers (wife Ginny), and his sister Barbara Meredith (husband Bill); and nephews Luke and Doug, and nieces Rebekah and Amy. The family chose to have Gabe cremated, and to forego a service. Please be assured that it is a great comfort for us to know that Gabe had caring friends, neighbors and acquaintances, and we regret that we cannot meet you all in person. Please feel free to contact us.

Bill Sellers at wlsell@bellsouth.net

Barbara Meredith at snj2bsm@mchsi.com

 

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Here's what we posted during that sad time when we learned of Gabe's passing:

 

Gabe Sellers
W2ZGB, Silent Key

Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB Our friend and Colorado QRP Club founding member, Gabe Sellers (W2ZGB, formerly KGØNR),
CQC # 012, passed away at his home, from natural causes, on March 21, 2011.

Gabe is survived by loving siblings and other family around the country.
Some of the condolences CQC has been receiving are at the bottom of this
page. Additional information about Gabe will be posted as it becomes available...

 

Your humble webmaster/treasurer had the distinct pleasure of meeting privately with Gabe during our club's March 11th meeting. At that time Gabe thought it might be of interest for us to post some pix and text from his experience at West Point during the Vietnam War. I agreed, and feel a small amount of luck in that I was able to post Gabe's pictures and descriptions almost a week before his passing. Here's how the piece was originally posted on our Members on the Move page - WBØJNR

 

W2ZGB - Gabe Sellers,
CQC # 12 at West Point!

Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB, at West Point in the early 1970s Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB, at West Point in the early 1970s Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB, at West Point in the early 1970s Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB, at West Point in the early 1970s Gabe Sellers, W2ZGB, at West Point in the early 1970s
Gabe provides some interesting history about not only his own
Army experience, but some of the famous officers he worked with
who are still in the news as of this writing in early 2011!
Roger,

For the first time in 35 years I pulled out my big cardboard box of army stuff. The first picture is of the Instruction Support Division (ISD). I am in the top row wearing a gold coat. Only those in the Instructor Group wore gold coats; in fact we were known as "The Gold Coats". We were the computer hot-shots. That is so the Cadets knew who to go to in the computer center when they had a problem; they went to a "Gold Coat". No officer wore a gold coat.

Not bad for a draftee.

The second picture I barely remember. I don't know what the occasion was and I don't know who is standing next to me. I do know he wasn't in the Instructor Group. The guy on the right side of the picture is the only other draftee that I know of at West Point. He was in the Instructor Group though I don't know why he wasn't in the first picture. The officer is Colonel Luebbert, the head of the Instruction Support Division. Since he was permanently assigned to West Point, he couldn't rise above the rank of Colonel. He was an interesting combination of hard-assed Colonel and absent minded professor. He was nothing but nice to us. Because of the quality of the people in the Instructor Group, he knew he had a good thing. To me, the guys in the Instructor Group were some of the smartest people I've ever met. Colonel Luebbert did wear a gold coat a few times because of the prestige (In this organization, computer prestige flowed up, not down.), at the same time hoping no one would ask him a computer program question.

As an electrical engineer, my computer programming background was weak. I found out after I got there that the thing that had most impressed Colonel Luebbert about me was the fact that I was from Bell Labs. Actually, I was drafted so fast out of college that when I showed up at West Point, I had spent more time in Basic Training (a totally miserable experience) than I had spent at Bell Labs. It was my engineering background that made me especially valuable there. The programming expertise came from on the job experience.

The third picture is a cropped version of the second picture. That was my friend's idea.

I don't remember who took the last picture of me on football game detail. This detail came from Headquarters Company, not ISD. On half of the home football games we had to help the MP's direct traffic in the parking lots. That is when this picture was taken. On the other half of the football games we had to wear civilian clothes and take tickets at the football stadium. That was the preferred detail because once the game started, we could leave. The year I was doing this is the first year in West Point history that the football team lost every game of the season.

I didn't know it then, but the next football season I would be at Berkeley. I didn't even know Berkeley had a football team because it is called 'California', not 'Berkeley'. That season, the West Point football team came to Berkeley to play them in football. I thought it was nice of them to come all the way across the country to play a football game for me, so I went to the game. In a mostly empty stadium, West Point lost again. It is interesting that I've only ever attended one Berkeley football game and one West Point football game, and it was the same game. I haven't attended any football games since. CU played 'California' at Berkeley last fall. They also lost.

General David Petraeus was a cadet at West Point (class of '74) while I was there. I don't know if I ever met him or worked with him on a computer problem, but if he remembers the computer center from back then, then he would remember the Gold Coats. We were that prominent there. Other cadets were General Raymond Odierno (class of '76) the current Commanding General, Multi-National Force - Iraq, and General Stanley McChrystal (class of '76) the (former) Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan. They were all cadets at West Point when these pictures were taken.

The final Certificate of Achievement was sent to me after I left the army. It showed up in the mail when I was at Berkeley, and it surprised the heck out of me. I didn't know they even did such things. My first thought when reading it was 'I did way more than this', but then I realized there was no room to write more on the Certificate. I thought it was nice that the Superintendent of West Point signed it. Yes, I did meet him when he took a tour of the computer center and I gave him a little talk about our computer graphics and what we did.

Of all the draftees sent to West Point that I know of, I was half of them.

Gabe

 

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Condolences

 

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Estate Sale The W2ZGB Estate Sale
 (Took place on Saturday, July 23rd, 2011)

W2ZGB Estate Sale Immediately below are some photographs that were taken at the W2ZGB estate sale on July 23rd, 2011. Although Gabe's passing was unexpected and sad for us we found the gathering for his estate sale to be a good time to reflect, reminisce, and even relax. Gabe will be missed but we're grateful to have had what time we could with him both as a club member, friend, neighbor, and family member.

YouTube logo Click Here for a YouTube video from a small portion of the sale...

Note: Each sale, no matter how small, qualified the buyer for one old "lunchbox" style CB radio and one CB walkie-talkie! You can see the kids holding walkie-talkies in photo #6 and a neat stack of CB transceivers near Gabe's club jacket in the last photo (# 15)...

Your humble webmaster originally posted these estate sale photos at the top of "Gabe's page" a few weeks around the time of the event. They've since been moved to this location for archival purposes as the sale, itself, brought back so many great memories of Gabe and his support of our club!

Click on any of these "thumbnail" images for a larger view:

W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
1. Jim & Dick
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
2. Bill, Jim & Roger
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
3. Antenna purchase
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
4. Heathkits galore!
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
5. Jim & space radios
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
6. Free walkie-talkies!
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
7. Technical reading
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
8. Jim & Sam
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
9. Jim daydreaming...
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
10. Vince & Judy
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
11. Young buyer
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
12. Jim & Dick
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
13. Vince
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
14. Lots of stuff!
W2ZGB Gabe Sellers Estate Sale Northglenn Colorado by Roger J. WEndell - 07-23-2011
15. Gabe's CQC jacket

 

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