Obituary of Forrest Edward Gehrke

Forrest Edward Gehrke, 41-year resident of Mountian Lakes, NJ, and father of eight children, passed away on November 4, 2005, after a short but courageous battle with brain cancer. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Jane Eltinge Clous Gherke, as well as five duaghters, two sons, their spouses, and ten grandchildren. Forrest was 85 years old, and remained an avid amateur radio operator, internet user, blog reader, and student of history and politics until his illness. Forrest enjoyed a long and successful career as an innovator and embracer of new technologies, spanning from the design of early television tubes as a young electrical engineer to the integration of telephone and digital networks. He was an internet user before most Americans had even heard of the internet. He retired at age 71, after working as an independent contractor for several years at Bell Labs in Whippany, NJ, where he worked on the local area network for the Trident submarine. Previously, he held management positions with ADP and RCA's Traveling Wave Tube division in New Jersey, and Sylvania Electric's tub manufacturing plants in Montoursville, PA and Huntington, NY. He began his career with Sperry Gyroscope in New york, where he met his wife Jane. Forrest earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1944. Following graduation, he was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, but chose instead to participate in another highly secret but less well-known project: the development of the Proximity Fuse. This device enabled American warships to successfully defend themselves against a desperate enemy deploying human piloted bombs, the kamikaze. Historians credit the Proximity Fuse with saving many thousands of lives and shortening the duration of the Second World War. Forrest had a life long passion for radio frequency wave propabation and antenna theory and design. He obtained his amateur radio license at age 15, when he built his first receiver and transmitter from a collection of parts including a metal street sign, which he used to fabricate the chassis and receiver housing. He held an amateur extra class license, call sign K2BT, and was a very active DXer. He was a member of the North Jersey DX Association, the Morris County Ham Club and the American Radio Relay League and wrote many articles for its publication, Ham Radio magazine. His six-part series on low band vertical phased arrays, published in 1983-1984, is still considered the authoritative reference on this subject. Forrest Gehrke was much loved and will be greatly missed by his surviving children, Robbin Gehrke of Altadena, CA, F. Scott Gehrke of Kinnelon, NJ, Lauren Stephens of Edgewood, NM, Karen Fetchin of Loveland, OH, Jeryl Ehrhard of San Antonio, TX, Jill Main, and Kylie Moses. Forrest and Jane's eldest daughter, Susan Gehrke Pelullo, died in 1997. He is also survived by his sister, Faye Christensen, of Pennsylvania. Forrest was born in Wausau, WI on July 20, 1920, to Edward Carl Gehrke and Esther Hackbarth Gehrke. Funeral services will take place on Tuesday, November 8, at 4:30 PM at Norman Dean Home for Services, 16 Righter Avenue, Denville, NJ (www.normandean.com). Friends may visit prior to the service from 2:00 - 4:30 PM.