Marvin James Fein, who was born in Riverdale, died in Newport Beach, Calif. on April 16, 2011. He was 90.

Born in a house his parents built on 6027 Tyndall Ave. on Aug. 16, 1920, Mr. Fein attended the Robert J. Christen School, PS 81, DeWitt Clinton High School and Georgia Institute of Technology.

Mr. Fein began operating a ham radio when he was just 10 years old, finding and using different radio frequencies to chat with people from various locals. He operated his radio nearly every day of his life for almost 80 years and the walls of his ham shack, built atop an office building in California, were covered with brightly colored postcards from the many hams he had spoken to, according to his daughter, Mary Helen Fein Clancy.

Mr. Fein worked for the General Electric Company and served as a civilian radio engineer in World War II. In 1953, he lived in a Catholic monastery in Sutatenza, Colombia, where he built the largest transmitter in South America.

Mr. Fein was also on the board of directors at the Hathaway Instrument Division of Hamilton Watch. He founded M.J. Fein and Company, which works with manufacturers of electrical power equipment, in Scarsdale, where he lived from 1955 to 1976.

Mr. Fein and his family traveled extensively in Europe, South America, Russia and Asia and lived in New York until Mr. Fein retired to Newport Beach in 1980.

He supported many charities, including Amnesty International, The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, United Jewish Federation, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital and the New York Public Library. He also volunteered at Hohe Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach for 20 years, according to his daughter.

"He was a wonderful husband and father. He had a great sense of humor. He loved people and he loved life," Ms. Fein Clancy said in a phone interview. "He was a really great guy. He was constantly starting conversations with people everywhere he went. He loved talking to people, listening and hearing their stories; he was very social."

"He was a wonderful husband and father. He had a great sense of humor. He loved people and he loved life," Ms. Fein Clancy said in a phone interview. "He was a really great guy. He was constantly starting conversations with people everywhere he went. He loved talking to people, listening and hearing their stories; he was very social."

"He had wonderful stories too, he would tell you so many stories and you would be rapt," she added in the interview, sharing stories of him waking his family at 3 a.m. and screaming on the radio.