I am sad to say that Michael Christie is a Silent Key. Although I did not know Mr. Christie personally, I am connected to him in a sense by now holding his last call sign K4MZ. Prior to being assigned his call under the FCC’s vanity process I collected as much information about him as I could. I wanted to have a historical account as sort of a memorial to him. Often hams grab up the 1×2 and 2×1 calls of SK’s and never really think about the person who previously held the call or the unsuspecting friends and acquaintances who search for them.

According to SSDI information, Michael Christie was born July 30, 1938 and died in June 7, 2003. His last known address from FCC files as of 3/27/1997 was:

326 Emerald Acres Drive
Crawfordville, FL 32327

Mikes email address was: k4mz (at) nettally (dot) com

Former calls: K6OHD, K7RLS

His interests that were listed on the World Wide HamCall™ Callsign Server were:

Bands: 6 meters, HF
Operating: CW, DX, Grid squares, QSLing, RTTY, SSB
Current Memberships: 10-10, ARRL
Awards / Certificates you are interested in: DXCC, VUCC, WAC, WAS, WAZ

Information obtained shows Michael was a former Cal Poly ARC Member, and an active SWL’r in the 1950’s. He was on the DXCC Honor Roll, and was an avid 6m operator as well.  His 10-10 member # was 66820.

Here is an audio clip I located from the OE3MWS site featuring Mike on the air:

November 16, 2001 – You can hear Mike working OE3MWS on 6m from EM70UE – 8274 km away.

Here is an image of Mikes QSL card that I saved from the World Wide HamCall™ Callsign Server:

 Click for actual size.