Harvey Bell VE3AFK (SK)

York Region Amateur Radio Club's Highest Honour

Harvey Bell died unexpectedly in December of 1970. At that time he was in the process of making his third attempt at keeping the club together and active. He had been a club member for almost ten years, enjoyed the fellowship and the sharing of technical information regarding Amateur Radio. He was especially interested in the Morse Code, and CW operation, but was also very involved with the fairly new SSB technology that was growing with leaps and bounds. During the late 1960’s activity in the club seemed to wane, and Harvey Bell, along with a couple of other area hams kept up a steady contact with other hams in Newmarket and surroundings. Invitations were sent out on at least three occasions in a an attempt to keep the club active and growing. He had just succeeded, in the fall of 1970, to get the membership back together again, and had turned the leadership over to Frank Rusholme.

His influence and his leadership in club affairs will long be remembered by the Amateurs in this area who knew him personally. In addition to being an active 80 metre DX chaser, Harvey was also involved in RTTY (radio teletype), VHF, and had one of the outstanding stamp collections in the region.

The Harvey Bell Memorial Award, which honours his name, is consider the highest acclaim that the club can give to one of its members.

Harvey Bell's Son, Michael Bell VE3NOO

Not long after posting Harvey Bell's QSL card, I came upon the web site of VE3NOO who had also posted it. Michael Bell, VE3NOO, is Harvey's son, and on his bio page he recounts being fascinated by his father's radio equipment, but, like me, was unable to get his licence due to age. He doesn't specifically mention the 15 year age minimum in Canada but I'm sure it must have been in place at the time.
Michael has kindly provided the photograph that appears in this post, which was located and scanned by his sister who is living in Western Canada.
Chris VE3NRT