Inducted May 2025
John was first licensed as KN4BAI in November 1954 at age 12. His first contest was the ARRL Novice Round Up in January 1955. He passed the Conditional test in March 1955 and was issued K4BAI.
John took over the Georgia state QSO Party from K4BVD and ran it for about 20 years with a little help from K4RHU, K4ADU, and his father, K4VGI. John did the promotion, scored all the logs (manually checking every claimed QSO against every other claimed QSO), prepared the results, and mailed them to every participant who submitted a log. He also prepared and mailed certificates for the winners in each state, province, and country.
Laney earned a bachelor’s degree and a J.D. from Mercer University in Macon, GA. He would operate in contests from his dormitory room when he and K4QPL (VP5M) were roommates.
John served in the Army and was stationed in Korea. He was licensed as HL9KQ and was very active. He went on to participate in many contest expeditions over the years, including PJ2CC, PJ9GIW, VP7/W4GIW, PJ2T, P40E, 4V2C, J77J, and 6Y1V. In 2004, WW4LL invited him to the rental QTH on Bonaire to operate the ARRL 10M Contest. John returned the next year and in almost every CQ WW CW contest since as PJ4A.
John participated in many WRTC events. He was the team leader with Bill Fisher, then KM9P, in WRTC 1996 in San Francisco, where they finished second. He was the team leader in WRTC 2000 in Slovenia with K6LL. For WRTC 2002 in Finland, he was the partner of Bill Fisher (W4AN). In WRTC 2006 in Brazil, he was the team leader with Jeff KU8E. For WRTC 2014, he served as the referee for the Lithuanian team. In 2018, in Germany, he was the referee for the Swedish team. For the WRTC after Covid in Italy, he was chosen by K4AB to be his partner, but a health issue caused him to have to drop out before the event.
He has been an officer of South East Contest Club (SECC) since it was formed in the late 1990s and has been the trustee of W4AN callsign since it was issued to the club in 2004 after the death of Bill Fisher.
For more than 20 years, John sent out to emails to members of the South East Contest Club, the Columbus Amateur Radio Club, the Alabama Contest Club, the Swamp Fox Contest Group and others who have expressed interest a weekly summary of claimed scores made by the club members and others in the states of GA, SC, AL, western NC plus a summary of contests coming up in the next week. This is very time-consuming, consisting of collecting and organizing the scores from the highest score to the lowest reported score, and the club getting credit for the score or the club the scorer belongs to if there is no club competition. This emphasizes the contribution made to the various clubs. The average runs 7 to 11 pages a week. The objective of these is to inspire more contest activity.
John can be found in virtually every contest. He is a regular participant in QRP contests sponsored by QRPARCI, Flying Pigs QRP Club, 4 States QRP Group, Mi QRP Group, New England QRP Club, North GA QRP Club, and others. He is a member of the FISTS CW club, the Straight Key Century Club (SKCC), and the FOC. He has worked all the major VHF contests since 1995 on 6M. He participates in the weekly contests, such as NCCC NS (member of the advisory group), the Slow Speed Tests, the Medium Speed Tests, and the CWOps Tests.
John’s professional career was as a civil law attorney, often representing clients in jury matters, office matters, probate matters, and bankruptcy court matters. In 1986, he was appointed judge of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of GA. He is in his third fourteen-year term, which will run until Sept 30, 2028.
He has been married more than 50 years and has two children.