W8FGX 1933 Cincinnati, Ohio

Operator: Jacob W. Schott became W8DZ

This was a shot of Jake W8FGX involved in one of his first loves, contesting. He had some nice size artillery, a pair of 4-400s and Yagis for each band.

Jake W8FGX and W8HPK

The W8FGX Antenna Farm in 1959
Center is a full size 40 meter beam at 85'. To the left, on a poll are 10 and 15 meter monoband beams. To the right, behind trees, is a 4 element 20 meter beam at 60'.
Jake was a major DXer and DXpeditioner. He operated at Navassa Is. KC4AF, Bajo Nuevo HK0AB, Serrana Bank KS4BF, San Felix CE0XA.

TV Bob N6TV sent me a couple of interesting links about Arnold Spielberg, the father of Steven, of Hollywood fame.
An engineer, Arnold died recently at age 103 and thus he made the news.
He was recognized as an important early pioneer of the computing industry, at both RCA and GE.
Of course, he was a radio amateur at a young age. In World War  II he had worked on a radio-guidance system to help steer bombs dropped from aircraft.
After the war, he was at Wright-Patterson for some time.

Arnold Spielberg graduated from Hughes HS in Cincy in 1934. His buddy in HS was Jake Schott W8FGX (class of '33).
I recognized Jake's name right away, because I was a budding young DXer in the early 1960's, when Jake was mentioned often in publications I was reading.

Arnold was W8IDX, W9AUM, and W2IXM and Jake was W8FGX (later, W8DZ). Together they started the ham radio club at the high school.
In the online documents, we see comments from Steven Spielberg about his father:  a tinkerer, making things....
But Steven never mentions that he himself ever became a ham. The father is quoted as saying his son started making movies at age sixteen and never wanted to do anything else.  (How'd that work out?!)

Jake, of course, went on to become Police Chief and a famous DXer and DXpeditioner into the 1960's, but died an early death due to heart attack.

See the Tribute to Jake Schott W8FGX

QSL, Photo, & Obituary, Tribute courtesy of W8SU
Obituary from the Cincinnati Enquirer
Photo of W8FGX, W8HPK and Antenna farm from Don Chesser W4KVX DX Magazine #85, September 16, 1959
Photo sent to magazine by W8OCT
Info courtesy of K6NA, N2BTD, W9VA, N6TV