There’s been a disturbance in the force. Since my last post, my world has been rocked a bit.
“The brightest flame burns quickest”
Its often said that when someone provides help or an answer, they “shed light” on the situation. Light can come from many sources, including a flame of course.
Flames can provide light, warmth, comfort, as well as provide energy to do any number of things. Jim Fisher, AJ3DI (formerly KC3BRA), was a flame.
That flame provided light amongst geeks in the dark; shedding light on the worlds of Linux, Open Source Software, Amateur radio, and often even some non-nerdy causes. Answers were given, help was had, puzzles and problems were figured out, and energy from this flame went into powering many causes and events, such as the MS-150, Ham Radio Field Day, Philadelphia Area Computer Society, the Philadelphia Linux Users Group, the Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club, Hive76, Philadelphia Maker Faire, and suffice to say, it also provided energy to all of the various people involved in all these organizations.
All of this on top of providing warmth and energy to his family as well, which was always his upmost priority.
On Tuesday, August 1st 2023, that flame flickered out. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, that sure looks like Jim’s call sign in this “silent key” email, but that can’t be right…
As an expert level typist, It would take me a literal week to type up everything I’d like to say about Jim, and to ask anyone else he was involved with, they would say the same. There wasn’t one person who didn’t meet Jim who didn’t walk away with “something to say”; he had the energy of a thousand flames and freely provided it wherever it was needed. He didn’t speak to you, he spoke to the room because there was no low volume option either (my slight hearing impairment was never a factor in a conversation with him for sure). Amongst the many obnoxiously loud things I still hear echo in my head, here’s some notable quips…
There is no try, just DO.
He was a big proponent of getting your hands dirty, and if you did so, he was even more excited, which in turn, made you more excited. Don’t just watch the video, TRY IT YOURSELF. Have an idea? DO IT. Yoda says so.
Play. Break. Learn.
Again, don’t be afraid to try something new, something different. Take risks, if you break it, learn how to fix it, but above all else, don’t be afraid to break it.
More will be revealed…
Naturally as he’s talking about future plans. There were ALWAYS future plans, like International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend (did you know Philly had a lighthouse?)
Do it for you.
Those who knew him would probably question me on this last one…probably not one of his often used quips. Well, he did, and as proof, its literally written here on a sticky, on the bottom of my monitor, with his call sign as attribution. I was having some struggles at one point, justifying why I bother putting effort into so many (perhaps niche) things, as well as often putting effort into initiatives at work that go nowhere or often unnoticed. His response to me was…”do YOU like doing these things, and do YOU think the effort is worth it?” Me: I guess. Jim: Then do it for you.
I do now, Jedi, I do.
I’ll always remember how happy he always was, especially that HUUGE smile I saw every time a new victim ham radio enthusiast was escorted across the parking lot by Jim, because he knew I’d get them on the air even if they had some stage fright, and he knew they’d be more likely to pick up the hobby if we did so, and we did. The lack of that smile will certainly make the next few #PLota sessions a little tough to swallow, but I’ll be there.
I am so thankful I got to be part of that circle. I’m so happy we got to have an awesome field day recently. We got people on the air, we had experiments and talks, we had RTTY and SSB and digital modes, we had the night conversations talking about ham radio, road construction, vintage coin machines and everything in between. More importantly, we had Jim yelling at us to try it all.
RIP Jim. We’ll take it from here.