N6CRO

Sasquatch Amateur Radio System (SARS)


Joe, N6CRO 12-10-95
In Memory of
 Joe Freezon, N6CRO

Friends Remembered on eHam.net

When all else fails use "The Master Key".


 I'm looking for stories, memories and photographs of Joe or any of the other Sasquatch's. If you have any you would like to Share them, please E-mail the Webmaster. Thanks Lil' Squatch.

 The sasquatchnet.org news gathering unit has just obtained a copy of Joe's FBI file. The file contained, among other things surveillance video of Joe which is now available for viewing for first time. Other information from the FBI file will be made available as soon as we can.





 I hadn't realized that Joe, N6CRO, had passed away. I haven't been to a TRW swapmeet for a while--which is the last place I know I had a conversation with him. And before that, it was probably at a SCRBBA meeting on the change to 20 KHz channel spacing. I am very sad to hear of his passing. I only have fond memories of him.

 I'm guessing I first met Joe about 1977 or so. Joe was one of the early members of the Radio Communications Monitoring Association (RCMA) that met in northern Orange County. This is the innovative group of radio enthusiasts that put scanning clubs on the map and significantly raised the knowledge and involvement bar in this hobby for the entire nation (an intellectual feat, that in my view, has yet to be matched anywhere). I was 16 years old at the time. I can recall that Joe and Dave Heywood were inseparable for the most part.

 As a teenager, I admired Joe greatly because he moved between computers and radios as if the two technologies were basically very similar and could be, with a little creative thought, completely complementary. Of course, only over time and much college was I to learn that Joe's perspective on the matter was indeed the correct one. I can recall once Joe taking the time to answer a seemingly bizarre question from me about how intermodulation is generated and what I could do about it in a Bearcat 210 scanner. Joe was also an early and vocal advocate for what we would call now, Internet-based computing. As we all know, Joe was way ahead of his time in this area.

 Joe was a good and humble man. I think he let others take some of the limelight on his projects. I recall Joe could be very quiet. Quiet, patient, and always listening. I don't think I have any pictures of Joe, but as soon as I finish up my Ph.D., I intend to scan and post all of the minutes and notes that I took at those early RCMA meetings at the Savings and Loan in Orange County. I'll make a special effort to highlight both Joe's knowledge of radio frequencies and systems in Southern California and his generosity for helping those of us less knowledgable.

 I know he'll be missed.

- Wayne, N6LHV; CA-LA-119 (RCMA)


There I was in Junior High - and there was Joe.

There I was in High School - and there was Joe?

I went and got my ham license at the end of High School (thinking I'd finally escaped) - and there is N6CRO??

I went away to school at Cal Poly SLO - and there was Joe??? How did he find me HERE?

I moved up to San Jose - and of course went to the Foothill Flea Market religiously - and there was Joe!

I'm walking around the Dayton Hamvention for the first time in my life - and there is Joe?!?

I'd attend the NAACP (Northern Area Amateurs from Cal Poly, ed.) parties at Brad's (N6BDE's) place and you'll never guess - there was Joe.

One day I received a phone call from Rick, N6NL - and found out that I wouldn't be seeing Joe any more. For this I was truly sad!
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 From the above you can see that Joe was part of the texture of my life experience. I won't claim to really have known him well - though I've known him most of my life, and many of his closest friends are also some of my dearest and closest friends.

 As teenagers we new each other through our mutual love for computers. Sean Vahey taught me all glorious mysteries of the Olevetti Programma 101. Joe, Sean, I and others hung around the computer lab eating our lunch, telling ridiculous jokes and practicing our programming skills.

 Joe was the oldest of us, and the first to get both a car and a drivers license. He had a truck as I recall, and would take the entire gang of us home after school. There was always room for an extra rider in the bed of the truck! I remember heading up to Harold Anderson's place which was the highest house on the Glendale hills and all the crazy switchbacks we took in the back of the truck.

 Matt Zilmer and I had been friends since Junior High, and we both got crazy about ham radio together. Matt was licensed first and got WA6EGJ, while I picked up WA6GFM a bit latter in my senior year. I only mention this because Joe hadn't shown an interest in ham radio yet.

 Joe got a job at the Board of Education. If I recall, he had that before we even graduated from high school! I took my first college class at Glendale JC which was Fortran during the summer following my senior year. Joe was the operator on the Burroughs B2500 system for this class.

 Skip forward a couple years - Sean Vahey and I had gone away to school at Cal Poly where we met Rick Gilligan (N6NL ed.).

 Joe and Sean remained close during this time and eventually Joe started visiting SLO. Joe met Rick and they became close friends also. Joe picked up his ham license around this same time.

 I graduated from school and went to work for Burroughs, while Joe had moved onto working on the BIG Burroughs systems. I remember shortly after graduating sitting in Sean and Rick's house on Patricia with Joe and others waiting for the first space shuttle launch.

 Eventually I left Burroughs and moved up to the San Jose area. I kept in touch with my buddies from the ham club, and found out about the Foothill flea market. Brad, N6BDE eventually started holding the NAACP (Northern Area Amateurs from Cal Poly, ed.) parties and Joe was a regular attendee through the years. I would regularly would see Joe at both of these events through the 80's and 90's.

 In around 1990 I went to my first ever Dayton Hamvention. There was Joe on the convention floor pushing repeater controllers.

 A couple of years ago now, I received a phone call from Rick telling me Joe had passed suddenly. I drove down to San Luis on a rainy day to honor Joe one last time where I helped carry him to his final resting place.

 I've mentioned a lot of the folks that I was around in the above. These same people were all close friends of Joe. These same people are my close friends. I know Joe meant a lot to these people and that he is missed in many ways.

 73 to you Joe - you were a marvelous person.
 - Steve, KA6S - 04-25-01


 Joe was a good friend in fact, one of the BEST. Always willing to help and rarely asking for anything in return.

 He was loyal to his friends and always went the extra mile when the time came. This was even more true with his family...really demonstrated well when he came to the aid of his family when the chips were down. This was his nature and it was very important to him to help.

 Whether at work or play, projects were handled with the same degree of expertise and enthusiasm. If Joe needed special knowledge about trailers or welders or transmissions he was head-on into it. When making plans for any endeavor, he didn't just think about the present but also what upgrades might be needed in the future. How could preparations be made in order to make those upgrades or enhancements easy to accomplish? That's how he was and we could all count on it.

 Others have mentioned that Joe would never pass up a good meal. It could be Houston's in Georgetown, the Outback or NWI in L.A. or the Alpine Village in Vegas....You name the city, Joe could tell name the best restaurant there. And the food wasn't the only important thing. The gathering of friends meant just about as much.

 Over the last twenty years, I learned a lot from Joe, but one thing in particular stands out You put your heart into your work and also into your recreation.

 I am grateful that he maintained that attitude as he really didn't know that there wasn't much sand left in the hour glass.

 I know that there are many projects that will never happen because of Joe's untimely passing.

 We will all miss him.
 - Chuck, WD6AML - 04-05-2001


 One of the most indelible memories that I have of Joe was his love of a good meal. Joe so loved his meal, that he wanted it to go on forever, or so it seemed if you were dining with him. Joe would savor every single bite until the last hint of flavor enjoyment had been fully extracted. Most of us were usually onto dessert when Joe was finishing up his salad. But eventually, he always made it around to the Chocolate Rum Sundae at NWI.
 - Terry, N6CPO - 04-01-2001


 One of my favorite memories of Joe is the fact that his 70's vintage Dodge van never had a license plate. Actually according to Dave, N6CRG he did have the plate but it was kept were all license plates should be kept. Under the drivers seat of course. Joe had the paper plate from the dealer on the van until it literally rotted and fell apart.
 - Jim, N6DHZ - 04-01-2001


 I stayed at Joe's house off and on during 1989-1990 when I started working at his software company. Back then, he had three cats in addition to his dog, Loopy. All three cats and the dog slept on the bed together and none ever realized that there was supposed to be a dog vs. cat rivalry.

 Joe named them "The Mama Cat", "The Black Kitty" and "The Stupid Gray Kitty".

 The former was, of course, the mother of the other two. The latter gained its name after Loopy often played with it by picking it up and shaking the heck out of it. Then it would walk around in a daze for awhile and eventually stroll right back up to Loopy to play some more.
 - Mike, KA6LPM - 04-01-2001


 As most of you know Joe's constant companion was his dog Loopy. Loopy was the only dog I know of who was a collector. I personally know people who collect almost anything of which there were more than three made. For example my father-in-law collects Barbed Wire or as he would say it in his Texas drawl "Bob Wire". So being a collector is not unusual, but for a dog?

 Loopy was a rock collector, a "Rock Hound" if you will. It wasn't uncommon for Loopy to spend the day at a mountain top repeater site loading rocks in to the back of Joe's truck. At several of our gatherings at the NWI Loopy would try to remove the rocks cemented to the foundation of the restaurant so they could be dutifully loaded in to the truck.
 - Jim, N6DHZ - 04-01-2001


 I know this is a few years late, but I just did a search on Joe Freezon for no particular reason and found this site.

 I found out Joe had passed away from Steve Wilson, KA6S, because Joe was one of my brother's closest friends during junior and senior high school. (So was Steve, for that matter.) I actually worked for Joe (and Chuck Weirheim (sp?)) at the Glendale Unified School District as a computer operator, and he had a direct and lasting influence on my knowledge of computers. I'm a research chemist who really only dabbles in computers and uses them for work, but I can say that MOST of my programming knowledge I acquired from interaction Joe in 1977-1978, and it has carried my all these years (it is now January 2004). I wish I would have had a chance to give him the thanks he deserves for what he taught me.

-Gary, N2TRA - 1-15-2004