'60s Vancouver DX'er Brian Williams passed away this morning at Royal Columbian Hospital, after a short battle with cancer.
I knew Brian quite well for several years after he joined the DX club IRCA around 1967, where I was also a member in Burnaby. Brian lived at home in Vancouver's East End, on Yale Street. When I first met him, he worked at McLennan Motors in New Westminster, and had returned to High School, to finish Grade 11 and 12 at Vancouver City College. I remember a picture he had of himself sitting on a large log in a lumber camp, where he had been for a year or two when he first quit school and left home.
As well as DX, we also talked about music. His interests were mostly in the Country genre, and he introduced me to the music of Gordon Lightfoot, whose current album was "The Way I Feel", before I heard him on Top 40 Radio in Vancouver.
From his bedroom in the attic, he spent a lot of Sunday nights after midnight, hearing some fabulous stuff, especially in the winter. I still find it hard to believe that he regularly got a Russian station near the Siberian Pacific Coast on 1250 KHz, while KTW Seattle was on the air with 5000 watts on the same frequency. Truth be told, he knew which religious programs on KTW were on when and had the longest pauses in speech, so he could hear the Russian station the best.
Like the rest of us in those days, Brian didn't have the greatest DX equipment, but he spent the time at it, and got incredible results.
For a time, he even ran a DX Hot Line. Several of us would call him on Sunday evening to discuss our plans for DX'ing after midnight. Then we'd call him in the middle of the night to give and get tips on what he and others who'd called had heard so far. As you might guess, no one but Brian had parents that didn't reject the idea of a phone ringing in the middle of the night.
I'll undoubtedly write more later, but I wanted to get the ball rolling for those who would like to say something about Brian.