I visited a Russian ship in Madras in the 70's after they had asked to borrow one of our Walport films ('Get Carter,' rather more exciting than their films so they told me.) The sparks took me on a tour of their radio station, and I was surprised to see another sparky keeping a listening watch ! I presumed they used some sort of blind transmission system as did Portishead back in the day.
It was a general cargo ship but it had a huge water cooled main transmitter ! ... bit different from my Bank Boat.
Then we started drinking ....

.... I tell you if the cold war had been about who could drink the most, the Russians would have won it hands down ...