01/04/2021

Contester and logging software developer Dave Pruett, K8CC, of Allen Park, Michigan, died on December 29. An ARRL member, he was 66. Although slowed in recent years by health issues, he is considered to have been a significant contributor to the contesting community. After obtaining the source code for the CT contest logger, Pruett wrote new code, and "his NA software breathed new life into the program," expanding it to accommodate multiple contests, said contester Jim Cain, K1TN.

Earlier, Pruett had developed a program to check logs for duplicate contacts that ran on a RadioShack computer.

He was a log checker for the ARRL 10-Meter and 160-Meter Contests, chaired the Michigan QSO Party, and was a longtime member of the Mad River Radio Club in Findlay, Ohio. He served as editor of National Contest Journal (NCJ) for several years when contester Randy Thompson, K5ZD, was the publisher and later, after ARRL assumed publication of the magazine.

"He was a guy who got things done," Thompson said in a post to the CQ-contest reflector.

Pruett also operated from the Caribbean on many occasions and was a participant in the 1996 World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) with Stan Stockton, K5GO, who called him "an inspiration."

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