Bruce Draper, AA5B, Silent Key

Bruce Draper, AA5B, died on October 25, 2022. He was 68. Bruce was a past editor of NCJ, published by ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio®, as well as a past contributing editor for ARRL’s membership journal, QST.

Avid amateur radio DXer and contester Ray Sokola, K9RS, noted, “Bruce was a great friend of mine for over 50 years. We met in high school in Delaware and then were both Electrical Engineering majors at the University of Delaware. He and his wife Dorothy (Ferenc) moved to Albuquerque after [he completed] an MSEE from Princeton, and Bruce had a long career at Sandia Labs. The move to New Mexico resulted in the ‘AA5 Banana’ call sign, which became quite active and started to appear in many contest logs. Over the years Bruce distinguished himself as both a single operator and multi-op contester. I was privileged to be part of many multi-op teams with him and appreciate all of those memories. He was a great teammate and I will miss him.”

According to his obituary, “Bruce is survived by his mother, Jeanette; sister Barbara and her husband, Steve Sylvester; wife of 46 years, Dorothy; three daughters, Alison and husband John Cummings; Bryn and husband Craig Hauquitz, and Catie and husband Ken Kraper, and 13 grandchildren, whom he dearly loved.”