Herbert S. Brier was born Feb. 28, 1914 in Lemont, Illinois. He died May 21, 1977 at Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso, Indiana, and he is buried at Evergreen Memorial Park Cemetery in Hobart (see his headstone here. See Herb's obituary in the Chesterton Tribune. (Thanks to Carl, W9CJH, and Lila, N9ESS, for allowing me to scan their original obituary.) Herb was a paraplegic, stricken in childhood with rheumatoid arthritis which left him bedridden for the remainder of his life. His many accomplishments, in spite of his severe disability, made him a true inspiration to many.
In 1975 Herb moved to 409 S. 14th Street in Chesterton (Porter County), but many remember that he lived at 385 Johnson Street in Gary for most of his life. Herb was first licensed in 1931 as W9EGQ, and it was in late 1976 that he was issued W9AD. He had a Morse code proficiency certificate for 35 words per minute.
Herb was a long-time member of the Lake County Amateur Radio Club. It was his friends in Lake County who secured a QCWA Life Membership for him in 1967 so that he could be counted with them as a Charter Member of the new QCWA Chapter that they were forming... this chapter, Chapter 36.
Here I am going to try to chronicle Herb's many written works, as best I can. It will take some time to get it all together (if ever)... but I am finding much help and many resources. Herb's work for Popular Electronics and CQ Magazine was extensive. Permission has been granted to reprint Popular Electronics articles, and there are now 14 articles that you can view. ARRL has given partial permission for five (of seven) QST articles which are also available below.
At the HamCall.net website you can view every issue of CQ Magazine since their very first edition in 1945 (excluding the most recent two years). These archives are viewable in both low-res and high-res JPG's, and also PDF's... and they are searchable! However, you can only view the first 10 pages for free. So if you search for W9EGQ, you can see their full listing (over 300!) but will mostly only be able to view the Table-of-Contents pages unless you purchase a subscription. Subscriptions are quite reasonable, and will allow you full access to the text and diagrams of all of Herb's articles and columns, from his first in August 1945, until his death in 1977. You might find other old-timer friends searching this resource also.
Former LaPorte resident Glen Zook, K9STH, has made a special effort to help me document Herb Brier's writing career. Glen possesses a nice collection of Popular Electronics magazines from 1956-66, and he has gone through them and provided a complete list of Herb's work by date, column name, page number, and subject. Glen's original index can be viewed as both a Word document or a PDF file. Glen has also provided scans of some of his favorite articles. Thanks Glen!
Michael Holley has created an extensive history and documentation web collection for electronic kit-building company, Southwest Technical Products Corp. (SWTPC). Their kits were often the subject of many articles and cover pages for Popular Electronics magazine. But for us, his Popular Electronics collection shows many of the Table-of-Contents pages that I have used in our index to list Herb Brier's contributions from 1963-75. Thanks Michael!
If you are an ARRL member, you can login to their website and do a QST Archive Search, which yields the following articles that you can view or download for your personal use (in PDF format). You can click on the articles in bold blue text below which are JPG reprints of articles taken from ARRL's QST View CD-ROM collection and are reprinted by permission.
All articles are copyright © ARRL. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Articles with W9EGQ as a keyword:
Sept. 1935 QST p.44: W9EGQ's version of CQ story (Strays)
Aug. 1977 QST p.81: Herb Brier, W9AD (Silent Keys)
Aug. 1977 QST p.81: Herb Brier, W9EGQ/W9AD (Strays)
QST articles authored by W9EGQ:
Sept. 1938 QST p.59: Contest Suggestion (Operating News)
Sept. 1945 QST p.42: Two-stage Transmitter (The Crystal Ball)
Oct. 1947 QST p.68: The Golden Rule (article contest winner) (Operating News)
Jan. 1949 QST p.46: I Will Do It in '49!
July 1968 Ham Radio p.54: Simple 1-, 2- and 3-Band Antennas
(Ham Radio magazine articles are listed by ARRL but not available for viewing or download.)
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