On May 9, 9:02 am, an old freind wrote:
On May 9, 11:07 am, AF6AY wrote:
"Mike Andrews" wrote on Tue, 8 May 2007 11:11:15
EDT:

On Tue, 8 May 2007 03:15:51 EDT, BNB Sound wrote
The first chapter of the "Collins Sideband Book" by Pappenfus,
Bruene, and Schoenike shows an AT&T SSB map with direct
and switched links to worldwide locations, circa 1960. I count
about 122 stations on that map worldwide. Considering that each
commercial SSB circuit of the time could carry two voice and
eight TTY channels simultaneously, that's fairly large. On the
other hand the service was 24/7 and rather routine, not much
emotion-raising (except to the users of such services).

does much if any of this survive to your knowledge?

Not a great deal of it is publicized so it is hard to say. Most of
the government and military HF stations have changed from
massive terminals to much smaller ones for specific agencies.
Those can be seen in websites carrying SHARES information.
The government conversion to ALE techniques has changed
the nature of stations' operations and reduced the need for
large stations with fixed wire antennas.

The commercial communications world has gone over to
(largely) fiber-optic, extremely broadband carriers for
thousands of voice circuits, hundreds of data circuits, and
dozens of video-audio circuits on one routing...plus the
communications satellite transponder relay services. Note:
at present - and for several years - all the available slots in
the geosynchronous orbit have been filled by commsats.
Note: Much of the underwater cable service has been or
will be soon replaced by "pumped" (self-amplifying) fiber-
optic cable.

Communications such as ARINC stations for relaying HF
from air carriers on long routes still exist in the same number.
So do the private-boat, commercial boat HF relay services.
The availability of HF communications for small stations in
commercial work has caused a shift from reliance on the
bigger mass-communications carriers to individual company
stations.

Yes, one can still hear "other" radio signals outside of the
ham bands. There still exist the strange hum-roar of 12 KHz
commercial SSB here and there on HF but those are far less
numerous than they were three to four decades ago. There's
lots more 'new' sounds of all the various TORs that "others"
use on HF and, once in a while, a rare CW signal. :-)

Thousands of old HF stations for non-ham use have been
closed down worldwide and equipment dismantled or just
junked. Some of the USA transcontinental microwave (FM)
long-distance relay system are still in use and up (visible
to anyone driving cross-country) but fiber-optics and very
high-speed digital time-multiplexed carrier services carry
much of the long-distance telephone signals if not relayed
via commsats. Such is longer-lived and more reliable.

It's difficult for many to reconcile the changes that have
happened in communications in just a half century but
that's how it went down. On a more consumer-oriented
basis, the broadcasting industry is generally wondering
what will become of all those old analog TV transmitters
after the transition to HDTV in the USA. There's no easy
answer for that, either.

73, Len AF6AY