Plenty of long distance circuits remained analog into the 90s, particularly the microwave relay tower networks in rural areas. They used all sorts of techniques to produce rather good results.
As an example, one game phone phreaks in the 70s would play is stacking very long lines back and forth. Route a call across the country, then back, then back again. You could do NY - SF four or five times with a circuit length of like 10,000 miles sometimes before the channel was unusable.
You are otherwise totally right about the potential distortion of a long distance analog circuit. Other times filters would be out of tune and you would hear the hundreds of other analog channels just murmuring in the background not quite discernible, and calling the next town over was almost impossible.
Screaming into the phone was more the pre-electronics era with carbon microphones. The original analog phone systems had no active amplification at all. Voice powered microphones were typical in the military until quite late - I think they still use them as backups on ships.
As an example, one game phone phreaks in the 70s would play is stacking very long lines back and forth. Route a call across the country, then back, then back again. You could do NY - SF four or five times with a circuit length of like 10,000 miles sometimes before the channel was unusable.
You are otherwise totally right about the potential distortion of a long distance analog circuit. Other times filters would be out of tune and you would hear the hundreds of other analog channels just murmuring in the background not quite discernible, and calling the next town over was almost impossible.
Screaming into the phone was more the pre-electronics era with carbon microphones. The original analog phone systems had no active amplification at all. Voice powered microphones were typical in the military until quite late - I think they still use them as backups on ships.