To participate in Matt's Memorial Wall here at 7155, please send
your short message about Matt to Sid, K7SID, for placement on the "Wall."

Now we surely know

How deep our friendships truly go

Old '\ '55

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Rational, Reliable and Accomodating

IN MEMORIAM

N7EG

His Key Is Now Silent

We Awoke Yesterday Morning . . .
to the sad news that our friend and fellow amateur radio operator, mainstay and elder, passed from our world on March 28, 2015. Matt Lepree, N7EG, the ham with the Swan radios and a lightning fast key.

In World War II Matt was a CW operator in the Signal Corps serving two tours in bitterly cold conditions. One was at Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territory and another was just 25 miles south of the Arctic Circle (if you can even imagine that). He recently served Homeland Security in the Tucson Communications center as one of the few who could still send and receive Morse Code at high speed.

He was there for his sick friends in hospitals and at their homes when they were in need. He would go above and beyond for them and tell us about what was happening as it unfolded. His world was rich because his heart was big.

His wife Fran says that his hair was prematurely white and if we had known him in earlier times it was mostly salt and pepper. She tells us that he loved his early morning 7155 group, that he never really enjoyed the groups he had found before and stuck mainly with his loved CW and the Bug he cherished. But once he found us, he was hooked.

Echo Golf
Matt loved his ham radio. In our morning group, when he wanted to make a point, at the end of the sentence he would always say the thing he wanted to emphasize twice. He would say things like, "Oh man, I know what that's like, I really do. Oh, yes, I really do."

And so Matt is now a Silent Key. Our hearts, our sympathy and our passionate wishes go to his wife Fran and his family.

You could hear Matt in the early morning hours when he was all alone on the frequency. The band had not quite shortened up and it was just before his signal would rise to the nines and tens we all were used to - and so it sounded like he was the only one in the universe, as if he were out there floating on a raft with an oil lantern held up in his hand, beckoning us to join him. While you adjusted your filters and your preamps, you could hear him calling, "Looking for the 7155 Group - anyone for the 7155 Group" before we arrived.

Matt welcomed us, made us happy, and he had his one-liner quips which brings to mind, Matt, nothing, absolutely nothing was above your "Pay Grade." You were simply the best any group could ever have hoped for. And we will miss you. We will miss you so very much, our 7155 friend.

"N" Seven -Three
Fly with the angels and bring your Q5 signal to the ones you'll indeed find along your new way of light. Put in a good word for us when you have the chance on your first QSO over the Infinite Meter band - you know the one - it's where everyone has a Swan, the fastest CW bugs in town and all the antennas a ham could ever ask for. And, as you well know, there are no height limits there Matt.

No, there surely aren't. No height limits there.

 

"This is N7EG

I'll be breaking for breakfast

and I'll be back

if anybody needs me.

Back to you Sid."

"73"