[Forwarding our club's announcement to the AMSAT-NA list. I know Ted was involved in some AMSAT projects over the years, also. Nate WY0X]
The Colorado Repeater Association is saddened to announce the passing of a good friend, and one of our long-term supporters and Board members.
Ted Cross, N0IAK, passed away early in the week of April 16th due to complications arising from a seizure. Ted was 46 years old. Ted was from England and was dual-licensed. His other Amateur callsign was G0HHY.
Ted worked as a firmware engineer for Hewlett-Packard, and enjoyed numerous interests outside of Amateur radio, including travel, the outdoors, aviation, music, fly fishing and sailing. He is survived by his father and sisters who live in the United Kingdom.
Ted loved working on and creating new technologies. He was driven to try new things, and was an inspiration to many Amateurs. His enthusiasm for all things new in technology was infectious, and he made working on difficult problems fun.
His work with the CRA dates back to the early 1990's, and includes creating the Colorado Front Range's first 1200 and 9600 baud digital-regenerative packet repeaters, installation and maintenance of numerous CRA voice repeater systems -- including the initial build-out of the Colorado Springs link and the Lee Hill site -- and creating and administering the CRA BBS during the years the CRA was involved in packet radio.
In the past and present, Ted also assisted with other Colorado Amateur Radio organizations, including various packet radio groups, and Mountain Top Associates of Colorado, especially on experimental modes and bands. Ted worked regularly with small groups of other hams, assisting in design, build, and operation of any system he found an interest in.
Ted was one of the first Amateur Radio operators in the area to experiment with the protocols we now know as "the Internet", including working with TCP/IP over packet radio, and other advancements in data networking in the 1980's and 90's.
Ted was also recognized as a guru on the internal workings of Linux and was a regular contributor to the open source community.
Anyone who knew Ted will remember his big Scottish brogue, his willingness to dive headlong into any new project, and his love for all things in technology -- especially if he could dig in and improve or change it. His passion was engineering, and he was a true technical pioneer.
On behalf of the CRA Officers, Board, and Members -- we say, 73 Ted. Rest in peace.