Murder Victim Remembered for Radio Expertise, Passion for Cars

As John Aegerter watched new technologies replace the pagers that had made him a wealthy man, he joked he would be the last man standing in the pager business.

His death — labeled a homicide by police who have arrested two suspects — will leave a hole in the radio communications industry, friends and business associates said.

Visitation will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a memorial service, at , 18700 W. Capitol Dr., Brookfield.

Aegerter, 63, in the garage of his Brookfield home. The cause has not been released by the medical examiner's office. But police and prosecutors say Aegerter, president of Air Page Corp. and other satellite communications businesses, was brutally beaten and had strangulation marks and an electrical cord around his neck.

In custody awaiting possible homicide charges are two people who said they he allegedly owed to an employee. 

A 'do-it-yourself' kind of guy

Friends described Aegerter as eccentric and highly intelligent — a self-made man who preferred to do everything himself, whether it be his taxes, car repairs and most of his companies' work.

"He would always say, 'Why pay someone to do it when I can do it myself?'" said Keefe John, who owns a Germantown Internet company that has equipment on Aegerter's communications towers. 

Aegerter owned about 75 towers in Wisconsin and Illinois plus two in Nevada, friends said.

Jack Hughes, a fellow ham radio operator, said Aegerter was proud to have built up his own companies and was a "workaholic" who at age 63 was still climbing his towers to maintain them rather than hiring others to do it. 

"John was married to his work," business associate Robert Guenther said. "John didn't want to marry anybody or get involved. John would work seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset."

When lightning hit a microwave radio on one of Aegerter's towers during last week's thunderstorms, Guenther said he talked to Aegerter at 11:30 p.m., making plans to meet at 6 a.m. to repair it. When Aegerter failed to show for that meeting and didn't answer any of Guenther's pages — both highly uncharacteristic — associates called police, who found Aegerter dead in the garage of his Golf Parkway home.

No family, small circle of friends

An only child whose parents, Clifford and Irene Aegerter, are deceased, Aegerter never married or had children. He also didn't have a will, despite his personal wealth, which associates worry will cause issues in administering his estate and sizable assets.

Aegerter had a close circle of friends, many of whom share his interest in ham radio. His death notice identifies him by both his legal name and his call sign, WA9GAR.

"He was always researching, tinkering and playing around with different radio equipment and technologies," John said.

Aegerter grew up in Milwaukee, attended John Marshall High School and MSOE, where he got a degree in electrical engineering, friends said.

Hughes, who has known Aegerter for more than 25 years, said Aegerter bought his first tower at a gas station at 55th and Center streets in Milwaukee in the 1960s. He started a communications business that initially helped taxi cabs coordinate rides.

He worked as a nighttime engineer for a Milwaukee radio station "back in the day when they played with really, really high voltage and UV radiation and you could burn or electrocute yourself, so they required radio stations to have an engineer on premise."

Keefe John said Aegerter developed one of the first mobile data communications systems used in police squad cars.

Aegerter bought so many towers, including a WOKY AM radio transmitter that he relocated and refurbished, that his pager service was among the best around. It landed him clients such as hospitals, including the Zablocki VA Medical Center, which still uses his service, friends said.

Had a passion for autos

A frugal man, Aegerter did spend money on cars that he collected and antique radio equipment.

"John's other passion was cars," John said. "Dodges were his favorite. He had multiple Rams, a Ram Charger, a Road Runner, a Viper and others."

He kept some of them at storage buildings at his tower sites, and others in his Brookfield garage. 

Aegerter also was a frequent letter-writer to state and federal lawmakers, lobbying for Libertarian stances. He also recently went door-to-door in Menomonee Falls obtaining signatures opposing a sidewalk along Silver Spring Drive that would have run past one of his tower sites. He did not like the provision that would have required property owners including himself to maintain the sidewalk. He died before submitting the petition to the village, Guenther said.

Aegerter also was not gun-shy about filing lawsuits, from challenging city zoning decisions about a sign outside his Greenfield Avenue business to a federal lawsuit over a tower siting dispute. He once challenged a State Patrol ticket he received for failing to have a front license plate on his Dodge Viper, saying the sports car was not designed for a plate. 

"He wasn't going to drill a hole into a $70,000 car," Guenther said. "He hasn't driven it since."

The Wisconsin State Journal quoted Aegerter last summer about his complaints to state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen about perceived conflicts of interest involving a state Department of Transportation official whose private radio companies were doing business with the state.

"He was eccentric," Hughes said of Aegerter. "He spoke what was on his mind. He didn't pull any punches."

Friends and associates said they would help to make sure his towers remain operating while his estate is processed. 

"I haven't slept in three days," said Guenther, who remains shaken by the murder. "Yesterday my pager when off and for a second I thought it was John wanting to come over for a sandwich."