[CW] Tom Christian VR6TC SK

[Donald Chester]

Remember when the ham community used to make donations to NFDXA to supply
fuel for Tom? Several times a year a ship would stop at Pitcairn Island and
deliver barrels of fuel to keep VR6TC on the air. Several articles on
setting up the first amateur station on the island appeared in early 1930s
QSTs.

Tom Christian, known as the Voice of Pitcairn for his half-century-long role
in keeping his tiny South Pacific island, famed as the refuge of the Bounty
mutineers, connected to the world, died at his home there on July 7. Mr
Christian, Pitcairn's chief radio officer and a great-great-great-grandson
of Fletcher Christian, the mutiny's leader, was 77.

For decades, starting in the mid-1950s, he operated radio station ZBP,
Pitcairn's official lifeline to the world. His duties included filing daily
reports to the island's administrative headquarters, formerly in Suva, on
Fiji, and now in Wellington, New Zealand.

With his death, Pitcairn's permanent population stands at 51.

The cause was complications of a recent stroke, his daughter Jacqueline
Christian said.

Mr Christian filed his reports in Morse code, switching to voice
communication only in the mid-1980s after Pitcairn acquired a
radiotelephone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/world/asia/tom-christian-descendant-of-bou
nty-mutineer-dies-at-77.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 

If the link won't  let you in, try a Google search, typing in:  tom
christian pitcairn island

Don k4kyv