9M6XRO S.K.

[IK0ZCW]

R.I.P. John



John Plenderleith, 9M6XRO passed away on 4 December, after battling cancer for several years. First licensed in 1960 as GM3OOK, he operated as 9V1RS from Singapore for about ten years; then he moved to theIsle of Man (GD3OOK), England (G3OOK) and finally retired to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (East Malaysia), where after one year as 9M6/G3OOK became 9M6XRO in May 2006. John logged over 250 thousand QSOs with his personal call signs, which included 3DA0OK, 7P8OK, A25OOK, C91XO, CU2/G3OOK/p, EL0A, V8FRO, V85/9M6XRO, XU7XRO, YB9/GM3OOK, ZL/GD3OOK, ZS6/GM3OOK. He was a team member of 4W6A (Atauro Island, Timor Leste 2011), 9M4SLL (Spratly Islands 2012 and 2013), ZL9HR (Campbell Island 2012), N8A & W8A (American Samoa 2013) and 5W8A (Samoa 2013). John was also active in the IOTA Programme, and operated as 9M6XRO/p from OC-133 (five times bewteen 2008 and 2014) and OC-295 (2010), and as 9M6XRO/8 from OC-165 (2011). A keen contester, he also chased DXCC (CW, Phone and Digital). "John's favourite mode was CW, but was comfortable on any mode", his QSL manager (M0URX) recalls. His CW "was so accurate that over the last ten years I rarely had any busted call enquiries".