During my ham days in the 1960s very few people I heard on the air had VFOs, and when you called CQ you had to tune around for a reply, so that your transmitter and receiver were on different frequencies during a QSO. This was on 2 meters. I always transmitted in AM mode (didn't have anything else available), and my transmitter was always on the same frequency, 145.026 MHz, as I had just one crystal. I had bought a couple more, but they were defective. At any rate, people who knew me also knew just where to find me; it was like having a single email address.
SSB was something I knew nothing about back then. Transmissions from the U.S. Andrews Air Force base were easy to pick up, including communications with Air Force One, but unreadable for me. I could have clarified them had I simply switched on and adjusted the BFO. Instead, I thought I was listening to scrambled messages, but discovered later that they were in the clear.