SILENT KEYS

[IK0ZCW]

Elder Apollo, SV2ASP passed away on 5 May. He was 64 years old, and had been fighting brain cancer for three years. A monk since 1973, he moved to the Docheiariou Monastery at Mount Athos in 1980. Nick Georgiades (SV2RE) and George Tsalios (SV2UA) introduced him to amateur Radio essentially as means of emergency communication. He obtained his licence in 1988, and two years later the Holy Council permitted him to operate. "In spite of all the difficulties and of not being fond of DXing (which does not really fit my monastic way of life)", he wrote, "I have been sacrificing my very little spare time to make the voice of the Holy Mountain heard on the air and to give joy to a multitude of friends impatiently waiting for a contact. I have been doing so since 1990, trying to spread, through my presence on the radio waves, a message of hope and optimism - from the ascetic world of Mount Athos to the troubled world outside". In 2000 he celebrated his 10th anniversary on the air with the special callsign SY2A.
Kathryn "Kat" Cheval, E51KC (KB7SCH) passed away on 1 May in Victoria, BC, Canada at only 55 years of age. She had been married to Andrew "Andy" Duncan, E51AND (AB7FS) since 1992, and the couple lived on Rarotonga, South Cook Islands for the past six years.