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Professional HF Work?
"BNB Sound" wrote in message oups.com... So, what else is out there. I know the military has always been heavily invested in radio gear, but what else was (and is?) there? Jon KC2PNF AT&T High Seas Radiotelephone Service could be used by any ship with high-frequency single side band radiotelephone service. Worldwide in scope, the service provided two-way voice communication between ships on the high seas and telephones on land, at sea or in the air. While I was employed at A.T.&T. I was given a tour of their international operating center in Pittsburg PA in the early 1990's. Being a ham I most enjoyed watching the operators at the High Seas Bureau taking calls from and to ships at sea. Staffed 24-hours a day, 365-days per year, AT&T operators at Pittsburg PA provided mainland telephone connection to ships at sea. In many circumstances, operators handled distress calls. The operations staff was trained for all emergency situations and alerted the Coast Guard of pending crises. 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. WOO was the radio call sign of the now-defunct AT&T High Seas Service. The radiotelephone transmitter station was in Ocean Gate, NJ ( 39°55'38?N, 74°06'55?W) and the receiver station was in Navesink, New Jersey, USA. 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. The AT&T high seas service consisted of WOO Ocean Gate, New Jersey and her sister stations WOM Pennsuco, Florida (Miami, Florida) and KMI Dixon, California (Point Reyes, California). A vessel at sea would make radio contact with one of those stations, and the operator would patch the radio connection though to a telephone call made over the PSTN. The charges were typically settled by making the landline connection a collect call. Larger vessels maintained accounts with AT&T. In the years prior to regular telephone service being available in Mexican towns such as La Paz, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta, KMI provided service to certain hotels and resorts in those locations. 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. AT&T shut down all three stations on November 9, 1999. It is believed that the only remaining commercial sources of high seas high frequency radiotelephone service are WLO in Mobile, Alabama and KLB in Seattle, Washington. AT&T now uses "Mobile Satellite Services". To use the High Seas Radiotelephone Service, each ship's radio officer would select a channel to call one of AT&T's Coast Stations. A technician at the Coast Station will then pass the call to an AT&T operator in Pittsburg PA . The person at sea would tell the operator the number he or she was trying to reach and the call was connected. People on land would call 1-800-Sea-Call and tell the operator in Pittsburg PA the name and callsign of the vessel they wanted to call. Ace - WH2T .. |
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