On Sat, 12 May 2007 04:47:18 EDT, "Dr.Ace" wrote:

AT&T High Seas Radiotelephone Facility - was the only facility of its kind
in the world, provided lifesaving, two way voice radio-telephone service
communication between ships at sea, or aircraft, and telephones on land,
sea, or in the air.

I beg your pardon - most if not all major coast stations throughout
the world had that capability. I was involved with the Israeli coast
station - 4XO in Haifa (Haifa Radio) - in the mid-60s and I knew that
all of the European coast stations had HF SSB voice service available
as well.

Before satellite communication systems were widely available, the only way
ships at sea had to communicate with the rest of the world was via HF SSB
connections to land stations.

Uh, are we forgetting CW and RTTY (later SITOR) TELEX HF which did not
use AT&T's network?

Sometimes a hotel
would register a land based transmitter as a yacht, and give it a fictitious
name in order to provide phone service to their customers.

Two brothels in a remote area of Nevada (where such activity was
legal) tried that in the late 70s and the VHF Marine carrier who
colluded in that lost his license and equipment as a result.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net