I received the followimg email drom Stu W1PTH who was friends with Steve sixty years agomwhen they were neighbours in Philadelphia.......
Hi Mike
My name is Stu, W2PTH from Cherry Hill NJ. I was just looking through eHam.net and ran across an article you wrote. I was absolutely shocked to read about the passing of Steven Finberg. I've known for several years that he was living in Mass. and working at MIT.....but that's about it. I was "shocked"......for the following reasons. I grew up with Steve in Northeast Philadelphia. We knew each other from grade school and he lived right across the street from me. I was at 1045 Levick St. and he was at 1048. I was KN3RGQ and Steve was KN3QGQ. Being Jewish, Steve was also at my Bar Mitzvah in 1962 and is also included in the photo album. I also remember that he had a sister.
Steves first station consisted of an HRO receiver with LARGE plug in coils and the transmitter was a converted ARC-5. I still have the 1961 copy of the ARRL Handbook that he used to get the circuit for the power supply for the ARC-5. I've always been very nostalgic and there are some parts of my life that I just don't forget. I guess there are also parts that I should forget.
The last time I saw Steve was in 1962 at my Bar Mitzvah. In summer,1962 we moved to Cherry Hill NJ when I started High School. I sent him an email many years ago but never received a reply. As fate would have it, I travel to Boston occasionally to visit my daughter and granddaughter who live in Needham. We were just there in May for my granddaughters 7th birthday.
I do remember that Steve was a very smart guy and did very well in school. It's not at all surprising that he went on to become an engineer and end up working at MIT. I'm attaching a photo of Steve's entry in the Fall 1961 Callbook. It's amazing what you can find on the internet.
That's about it. I just felt that I wanted to send you a little note after reading your article. By the way, Steve was also my very first contact as a ham. It was a pre-arranged CW contact and I was using my fathers signal generator as a transmitter...LOL. He probably would have shot me if he knew at the time. My father was an electrical engineer at RCA in Camden NJ and he always wanted me to get into radio. Actually, I ended up in aircraft repair, because of the Air Force, Vietnam, etc, and continued in that line of work for 35 years. I'm 72 now and retired since 2007. Now a days I spend a lot of my time with a great girlfriend, following the stock market and, of course, ham radio. I'm very active on SSTV on 14.230 and have been since 1976. I have a few pictures of the station on QRZ.com. I hope that through this little note I've enlightened you at least a but about Steve.
best regard's, Stuart Ruben W2PTH Cherry Hill NJ.