SILENT KEY

[IK0ZCW]

Yasuo "Zorro" Miyazawa, JH1AJT passed away on 23 March, after a long battle with cancer. He was 72. "Our ham radio world has lost another beaming light", says Champ Muangamphun (E21EIC), who joined Zorro on many DXpeditions. "The founder of SEISA Group and Foundation for Global Children (http://www.fgc.or.jp/english/), he was deeply involved in humanitarian projects in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Japan, Myanmar, Eritrea and Bhutan, and was also the main driving force behind many DXpeditions".
Zorro was inducted into both the CQ DX Hall of Fame (2015) and the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame (2020); he was also the recipient of the Intrepid Spirit Award in 2016 (for his "outstanding efforts to activate rare and often difficult entities"), the YASME Excellence Award in 2018 ("for his extensive promotion of amateur radio in developing countries"), and the Dayton Hamvention Amateur of the Year Award in 2020.
In 2015 he established and endowed the International DX Association's "Hams with Hearts" fund, which specifically supports humanitarian projects carried out by DXpeditions (https://www.indexa.org/hamswithaheart.html).
Over the past thirty years or so, he operated from many DX spots, including Bangladesh (S21YX and S21YZ), Bhutan (A50BOC, A51A, A5A), Cambodia (XU1A), Eritrea (E30FB and E31A), Ethiopia (9E2A & ET3DX), Laos (XW1, XW1A, XW30A) and Myanmar (XZ1A, XZ1J, XZ1Z), among others. "We of the DX community are deeply indebted to him", INDEXA Director Ralph Fedor (K0IR), says. "He contributed generously to DXpeditions and encouraged and mentored operators.
Without Zorro's support our log books and our memories would be less than they are".