SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX003   
   ARLX003 Hollywood Producer, ARRL Patron Dave Bell, W6AQ (SK)   
      
   ZCZC AX03   
   QST de W1AW   
   Special Bulletin 3  ARLX003   
   > From ARRL Headquarters   
   Newington CT  May 16, 2016   
   To all radio amateurs   
      
   SB SPCL ARL ARLX003   
   ARLX003 Hollywood Producer, ARRL Patron Dave Bell, W6AQ (SK)   
      
   Award-winning Hollywood producer and ARRL benefactor Dave Bell, W6AQ, of   
   Encinitas, California, died on May 13. He was 84 and had been a radio amateur   
   for 65 years. Bell had been suffering from cancer and was in hospice care. An   
   ARRL Life Member and a former chair of the ARRL Public Relations Committee,   
   Bell directed Amateur Radio Today and produced several other ham radio-related   
   promotional videos and films, starting with The Ham's Wide World, a TV   
   documentary filmed in black and white.   
      
   "If I have a claim to fame in Amateur Radio, it's probably that I produced the   
   first television documentary about ham radio that got worldwide distribution,   
   and then I made several others before I   
   'retired' from the ham radio film/video hobby-within-a-hobby and got busy   
   making a living producing TV movies, specials, and documentaries for all of   
   the networks including HBO and Showtime, and made a couple of theatrical   
   feature films - Nadia and The Long Walk Home," Bell recounted on his QRZ.com   
   profile. He started TV's Unsolved Mysteries, and he received an Emmy Award in   
   1985 for Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special, Do You Remember Love. Bell   
   chronicled his filmmaking and his Amateur Radio and professional lives in a   
   memoir, World's Best Hobby.   
      
   Last year, Bell and his wife Sam, W6QLT (she's a quilter), donated a signed   
   Andy Warhol print to the ARRL. The artwork - "Myths: Superman 1981" - sold at   
   auction last fall for $150,000. The proceeds are being used to create "The   
   Dave Bell, W6AQ, Endowment Fund" to benefit the League.   
      
   Bell also produced The World of Amateur Radio, This is Ham Radio, and Moving   
   Up to Amateur Radio. He directed the Amateur Radio Today video in 2002. The   
   short presentation about emergency preparedness was narrated by former CBS   
   Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD (SK), written by Alan Kaul, W6RCL,   
   and produced by Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF (SK) and Bill Baker, W1BKR. Bell and   
   Pasternak also created The DIY Magic of Amateur Radio in 2011, and he   
   co-produced The ARRL Goes to Washington, also voiced by Cronkite. Working on   
   his own, Bell filmed videos for the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC)   
   events in 2000 in Slovenia (The Ham Radio Olympics) and in 2002 in Finland.   
      
   A DXer, casual contester, and a past president of the Southern California DX   
   Club, Bell was a frequent speaker at Amateur Radio gatherings. He was named   
   the 1984 Ham of the Year at Dayton Hamvention, and, in 2003, the ARRL   
   presented Bell with its first Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on films   
   and videos about Amateur Radio. In 2011 he was named to the CQ Amateur Radio   
   Hall of Fame.   
      
   Heil Sound Ltd's Bob Heil, K9IED, called Bell "one of the great ones." Heil   
   said Bell's "great smile and laughter" and his "generosity to the hobby" would   
   be missed, "but most of all, we will miss his spirit."   
      
   NNNN   
   /EX   
      
   )\/(ark   
      
   Always Mount a Scratch Monkey   
      
   ... I can walk on water, but I stagger on alcohol.   
   ---   
    * Origin:  (1:3634/12.73)