FARMINGTON — E-mail, Twitter and Facebook may be foreign terms to 90-year-old Charles Stenger.

While today’s conduits allow communications between friends and sometimes strangers around the world, Stenger’s ham radio has been doing the same thing since he was a teenager.

It’s a hobby that’s lasted nearly 80 years.

From his room at Edgewood Rehab and Living Center’s assisted living, Stenger has his radio set up beside his chair, his call letters, W1HTG, pasted to his bureau and a small antenna is attached to the roof over his room. His radio’s signal is picked up by a repeater on top of Sugarloaf Mountain and retransmitted over long distances.

“It’s for emergency purposes,” he said of his agreement to provide communication for local health care facilities in emergencies.

The radio stays mostly quiet these days but Stenger has communicated with other local hams, or amateur radio operators, he said.

Born Dec. 26, 1919, in New York City, he grew up in Gerritson Beach in Brooklyn where his parents supported his ham radio interest starting at age 12, he said. He was self-taught with the use of books on radio operation and the Morse code, later earning his license.

In those early days, he talked with other “hams” in the New York area but later developed conversations with people all over the United States, Mexico and South America.

Learning their stories of who belonged to the voice heard on the radio and what they did. Conversations with strangers often ended with “maybe I’ll see you sometime,” he said as he gathered their addresses and eventually did meet a few on his travels.

He also shared his knowledge with other ham enthusiasts, teaching them the basics and helping them to receive their licenses, he said.

His skill was put to use during World War II as he served within the ground crew for the Air Force in India. The communications division he served in would receive daily messages using Morse code to prevent the Japanese from understanding them, he said.

His division was also responsible for photographs of landscapes that were used to plan bombing attacks. His coded messages relaying valuable information regarding those plans.

After the war, he returned home to Brooklyn and worked for the telephone company as a toll foreman. His insight for trouble shooting problems with equipment put him into a teaching arena again where he taught other employees how to handle these problems.

After retiring, he and his wife of 46-years, Rosemary, moved to East Dixfield in 1977 where he once again used his skills and knowledge to teach. This time he was an instructor of hunting, snowmobiling and ATVing safety. He earned the title of Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife master instructor.

Stenger was recognized in 2007 by the Maine Health Care Association and the governor along with Farmington’s Barbara Yeaton, as residents of nursing homes or assisted living centers, for their lifelong contributions to society. An article written at the time noting the honor is enlarged and tacked to his wall.

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From his assisted living center room in Farmington, Charles Stenger continues an almost lifelong hobby as a ham radio operator.