Yes I remember the days of calling Bombay on HF too. The galling thing was that whilst you were shouting yourself hoarse trying to raise Bombay you could hear Darwin, Australia loud and clear!
We were flying across India one night and had just checked all the clocks against the time signal on the BBC World Service. A short while later I made a position report and the controller queried my ATA at the last position and then asked me what time we were showing on the aircraft clock. He then insisted that HIS time was correct and we were wrong despite telling him that we had just got a time check off the BBC!!
Then having used AM for years we got SSB - what a luxury!