Another part of the Long Lines infrastructure I thought was cool was the High Seas service facilities; one of the first things I heard on the HF dial when I was a kid in the 90s was hearing KMI advising a ship out in the Alaska Gulf of a phone call during their traffic net...it was one of the crew's wife who wanted to bring good news of a baby boy!
Reading up on how their ground stations were setup was interesting; they had separate transit and receive sites that were tied in.
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