FALMOUTH — Former ABC network correspondent and longtime Maine broadcaster Robert “Bob” Peder Dyk died of cancer at his Falmouth home today. He was 71.

“He was fabulous, talented and had a great sense of humor,” said his wife of 21 years, Trish Dyk.

Mr. Dyk, who had a background in radio and television, was an anchor and reporter for Channel 8 and News Radio WMTW from 1987 to 2004. He came out of retirement last year to work as a part-time anchor-reporter for WGAN and was working as recently as last month, his family said.

Among the highlights of his career was being the only American network correspondent on the scene in Tehran in 1979 for the first four days of the hostage crisis, when Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in support of Iran’s revolution and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Mr. Dyk began his professional career as a page at CBS television in Los Angeles and transferred to CBS News as an editorial assistant during the network’s coverage of the 1960 Democratic convention, working with broadcast luminaries such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Don Hewitt.

“There’s not enough fingers on your hands to know the number of people he worked with and who admired him,” said his brother, Jim Dyk.

He was inducted into the Army and served from 1960 to 1962, doing newscasts for Armed Forces Radio and TV Service in Hollywood. After his discharge, he worked at two radio stations before shifting to television. At KTLA, he and his colleagues won a Peabody award for their coverage of the Watts riots in 1965.

While vacationing in London in 1964-65, he reported on the death of Sir Winston Churchill.

In 1973, Mr. Dyk moved to London and freelanced for CBS Radio News. After five years, he rejoined ABC as a television correspondent.

He returned to the United States in 1984, and after working briefly with KGO-TV and KRBK-TV in his home state of California, he moved to Maine in 1987, and worked with Channel 8 and WMTW until his retirement.

Among his lifelong hobbies was being a ham radio operator, according to his brother.

Jim Dyk said that his brother, a lector and parishioner at Holy Martyrs Catholic Church in Falmouth, considered one of the highlights of his career to be meeting and traveling with the pope.

His interest in other people and their stories carried over to his personal life, Jim Dyk said

“He was someone you could always call upon, someone who always had time for other people,” Jim Dyk said.

Just before his death, Mr. Dyk was getting treatment at a cancer ward and wound up gathering other cancer patients and leading a group discussion about their diagnosis and how they felt about it. “That was his interest in people,” his brother said.

In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. Dyk is survived by his daughter, Gaby, his son, Tom, and his sister, Mary Greenacre. He was predeceased by his first wife, Susan Francesca Dyk, in 1983.