It is with great sorrow to report Denny Chase (W6HDC), also known in the old days as KA6KTA passed away this morning following a long fight with cancer. Denny is well known by many as a past president of Cactus Radio Club, and long-time dedicated Cactus volunteer. Denny was instrumental in the growth of the intertie system and developed strong personal relationships with many of our affiliate clubs. His knowledge, professionalism, and friendship will be deeply missed.

On a personal note, Denny was my sponsor into Cactus back in the 1970’s. He and his wife LaDonna quickly became our personal friends and soon after, Denny was my best man at my wedding and La Donna was our maid-of-honor. All these years later, we always remained close. This is a huge loss both personally, and for Cactus. May he be forever remembered for all his contributions to this organization, as well as, for all of the great friendships he developed with so many people who were lucky enough to have met and spent time with him.

It is my understanding there will not be any public service, at Denny’s request. For those who would like to send their regards, may do so via USPS. His home address is good in QRZ or within the FCC database online.

Rest peacefully with God my friend. We will all deeply miss you….

Don Braun (KB6BOB) & Tracy Braun (KB6BAB)

This is a very sad time for Denny’s sweet wife LaDonna, his family and myself too. I met Denny in the mid 1990’s and I was very new to ham radio. I took an interest in the mechanics of repeaters and I began talking to Denny about getting involved in the process. Not long after that I was sitting in his work shop tuning mitrek link radios and boy there were a bunch of them. This then progressed to traveling to mountain tops for installation and maintenance with Denny. During this time frame Denny came up with the idea of starting a Cactus open repeater which came to be known as CORA. To this day, thanks to Denny has become very successful.

For those of you that truly new Denny, he loved his secret squirrel frequencies in which we talked on every night at 8:15pm sharp. We talked about everything from ham radio to trying to solve all the world’s problems. Even during his worst of his illness he would always show up on the radio or cell phone at 8:15. I truly valued his friendship and all the knowledge he passed onto me. Forever missed RIP my friend.

Ron Boyd
W6CRC

Very sad news. I met Denny in 1996 at my membership interview. It lasted 4 hours and I got a great history session. We became friends and started servicing the radios in San Diego together. With road trips to Telegraph, Potato Patch, and Potosi. Between radio and aviation we were never at a loss of something to talk about. He was the best friend and I shall miss him. RIP my friend.

Ken
WD6DQL

Very sorry to hear this. Denny spent a good bit of his life building and doing for Cactus, including a stint in the unenviable position of President and GM. He moved us into incorporation and acquired use of a number of sites that are key to our continued operations. Denny pushed the construction of Palomar based sites, and with others, helped Rick work the software into stable operation.

He battled health issues, conflicting medications and difficult treatments for many many years. Now he is at rest.

We will miss him

Robin
WA6CDR

Denny was my close friend, supporter and confidant when I was asked to manage the club in the 70's. I could not have done the job without him. He was also responsible from taking Cactus San Diego from just a few sites with scattered coverage to the broad system it is today. He was responsible for finding, building, installing and servicing so many sites in San Diego county that I often worried about how they would be supported in later years. And he did it all in a very short period.

Denny was on my list to call this week to see how he was doing health wise, but now I know he is at rest with our Creator. I will miss him.

73 Denny and 88 to La Donna,

-Dennis N6DD

I am so very sorry to hear about Denny. He was always so very helpful and I will miss him.

George [KJ6VU]

I spent a lot of hours on the phone with Denny when I was CII president, as well. he gave me a lot of insights into the hows and whys we did things, some of the personalities involved, the site politics, and just ham radio in general. We both quite enjoyed those chats. I first met Denny on Santa Rosa in about 1990 when Riverside County was building it's site there. The first few times I went up there, he was there. I almost thought he lived there! Complicated history with that place, but we were able to laugh about it later. I'll miss him, he was quite an interesting character and when he got going, he sure liked to talk!

Mel - WA6JBD

Sad news indeed.

I met Denny back in the early 80's and we became fast friends. I was out of High School and interested in learning radios and Denny took me in under his wing and taught me the technology based our shared interest in Motorola radios. He was involved in this thing called Cactus and suddenly I became his Sherpa on many long trips to either install or repair repeaters in far off places, this was big to me. We logged untold hours of windshield time talking about everything from flying airplanes, his life of racing motorcycles and being the night time transmitter engineer at Ch 69 he had lead an interesting life and it opened my horizions. We had a similar sense of humor and believe me, we laughed until our stomachs hurt. I was fortunate to learn from Denny as well as Dennis Mills, they taught me the nuts and bolts of 2 way radios, two giants in the hobby to be sure. Denny was a close friend and fiercely loyal, thoughtful and a good judge of people. We spent hours in his shop building controllers and he taught me simple TTL Logic and audio routing and wire wrapping circuit boards and how to read the data sheets of any CMOS device as well as operate it properly, at the time I didn't recognize how valuable that was. He was a mentor and he encouraged me to start community college to learn electronics, like he would say "come back and teach me something"!

Today, I logged 4 hours driving to the desert to work on some conventional mutual aid repeaters, I am my own Sherpa now. I don't know where I would be without his mentoring in the industry that I love or all of the great people that he has introduced me to.

I kept my passenger seat empty today because I am sure he was riding with me. I will always miss that man.

Oscar Quintanilla, KF6YB