Robert Carter was a citizen of the world by the time he was a teenager - and he never had to leave home.

He was a ham-radio operator as a boy in Thomaston, and his skill at clicking out coded messages to the far corners of the Earth and deciphering ones he received ensured he had a good job when he entered the Army Air Corps during World War II.

When the Army saw he knew international Morse code, it put him to work teaching it to pilots, said his son, R. Michael Carter.

Robert C. Carter, 83 of DeKalb County, died at the Hospice of Atlanta on Wednesday after a long battle with cancer.