November 1962 Popular Electronics Table of Contents Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

At Parvoo University, amid relentless November rain, H-3 dormmates Carl and Jerry pursue H-2's prank: a stolen bronze trophy plaque hurled into a half-mile muddy stretch of river. Cold, turbid waters bar preclude dives for a search; non-magnetic bronze defies current-day metal detectors. Jerry repurposes his cousin's boat depth-finder as an enhanced sonar, exploiting echo signatures. A motor rotates a neon tube across a depth-calibrated dial; at zero, contacts trigger a 200-kc ultrasonic pulse from the transducer in transmit (speaker) mode, flashing initial glow. Bottom echo reflects to transducer in receive (microphone) mode, amplifying for a secondary brighter flash; dial arc between flashes - proportional to round-trip time via sound velocity in water - indicates depth. Soft bottom mud scatters pulses into diffuse, weak echoes from multiple reflections; plaque's flat surface yields specular, sharp, intense returns. Gain adjustment enhanced soft/hard contrast, as demonstrated to Carl by Jerry. You'll need to read the story to find out if it worked (of course you already know).

Hello-o-o-o There - A Carl and Jerry Adventure

By John T. Frye W9EGV

A cold November rain beat against the windows of the room Carl and Jerry occupied in the H-3 Residence Hall of Parvoo University. Jerry was studying alone in the room, but now the door opened and Carl came in wearing a glistening wet yellow slicker. He stood expectantly just inside the door until his chum turned around in his chair and looked at him curiously.

Carl deserved the curious stare. A rapid squeaking sound like the voice of a bat came from him, and little objects of some sort darted rhythmically back and forth across the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses.

"What on earth is the matter with your glasses?" Jerry demanded. Oh, so you noticed my lens-wiper invention," Carl said casually, reaching into his pocket and doing something that stilled the sound and the flickering movement in front of his eyes. "I thought you might not," he added as he carefully unclipped a spidery mechanism from the heavy frames of his glasses. It's really quite simple, something any near-genius could have thought up," he said modestly.

"This little fractional horsepower d.c. motor drives two reversing screws from the level-wind mechanisms of old fishing reels. A bracket attached to each traveling pawl riding in the screw thread carries the little rubber wiper blades back and forth across the lenses. The whole thing clips to the frame of the glasses, and the battery and switch are carried in my pants pocket. Raindrops don't bother me at all now, and I'm sure snowflakes won't either. It takes a little will power, though, to keep from batting your eyes every time the wiper blades cross in front of them... What do you think?"

"I think you better throw that thing on the floor and let me hit it with a shovel," Jerry retorted. "Our reputation for sanity on this campus is not too good anyway, and it will never stand the strain of something like that. You've not been wearing the goofy thing around the campus, I hope."

"I was wearing it on plaque patrol down along the river, but if the students and faculty can get used to seeing those seniors sporting their scraggly beards, they shouldn't flinch at any idiosyncrasy," Carl retorted.

"What kind of patrol were you on?"

"Plaque, spelled p - l - a - q - u - e. Oh, I forgot you didn't know about that. Last night some guys from H-2 stole a big bronze plaque out of our trophy case. Someone spotted them going out the door with it, and a gang of H-3 boys set off in pursuit. The  'thieves' took off in their car with our men in another car right behind them. Finally, they were cornered down along the river; but the plaque was not with them. They had ditched it somewhere.

"Fellows from H-3 went over the route the thieves had followed almost inch by inch without finding the plaque," Carl continued, "and it was decided that the jokers must have heaved it into the river which runs parallel to the road for a half mile or so. We're keeping a constant patrol of that stretch to make sure the thieves don't recover the thing before we have a chance to find it. They probably know exactly where they threw it, but we don't. Given a chance, they could sneak in there, fish it out, and be one up on us."

"How do you intend to locate it? A half mile of swollen muddy river is quite a haystack."

"That's what's bugging us. We've messed around some with rakes and grab-hooks, but that's pretty discouraging. The thieves were in a convertible, and a fellow standing up in it could have sailed the plaque quite a distance out into the river. If the plaque lit on its face, there would be a good chance of hooking the wire across the back of it; but the odds are 50-50 it lit on its back in that soft mud at the bottom, and a rake would pass right over it."

"How about diving?" Jerry suggested.

"The water is too cold and too muddy. You can't see in more than a couple of inches of the stuff; so you'd just have to feel for the plaque. Remember: it can be anywhere along that half-mile stretch and anywhere from five to seventy-five feet from the bank. Several fellows say they will dive for it when we locate it, but they simply can't invite pneumonia searching for it."

"Hm - m - m, it seems we have ourselves a challenging problem. Since the thing is bronze, of course no sort of magnetic detection will work."

"Yeah, we thought of that. I guess what we need is some sort of cheap and dirty sonar."

"Say that again!" Jerry exclaimed as his eyes took on their glazed, deep-thought appearance.

"I said I guessed we needed some sort of cheap and dirty sonar."

"Precisely! And I know exactly where we can get it. Come on. Let's find someone with a car who can drive us to my cousin's about twenty miles east of here."

When you are in your late teens, the thought is father to the deed and the gestation period is very short. A little more than two hours later Carl and Jerry were back in their room checking out a piece of compact electronic gear Jerry had wheedled out of his cousin.

"My cousin uses this electronic depth-finder on his boat," Jerry explained. "He and I were playing around with it on the Tippecanoe River last summer. It's really a simple form of echo-ranging sonar. That's why your remark reminded me of it."

"How does it work ?" Carl wanted to know.

"Behind the rim of this circular transparent screen, as you can see now that I've taken the cover off, a motor whirls a neon tube on the end of a radial arm. The circular path of the neon bulb is marked off in feet. See these contacts that close briefly every time the neon bulb passes behind the '0' mark here at the top of the dial? When they close, they feed a short pulse of 200-kc. signal through a cable to this transducer that's mounted to the boat so it's in the water and pointing downward. The pulse is simultaneously fed through a transistorized amplifier to the neon bulb and makes it flash behind the '0.'

"Sound from the transducer travels down to the bottom of the lake or stream and then is reflected back up into the transducer that now makes like a microphone instead of a speaker. The resulting electrical pulse feeds through the amplifier to the neon bulb and causes it to flash a second time, Since the neon bulb travels around the face of the dial at a controlled and known speed, the angular rotation between the first and second flashes is a function of the time it takes the sound to go from the transducer to the bottom of the lake and back. The speed of the motor and the markings on the dial are such that the depth of the water is indicated directly in feet by the location of the second flash of light."

"How fast does the motor turn ?" Carl asked.

"Let's see; one complete revolution of the neon bulb indicates a maximum depth on this scale of 120 feet. Sound travels through water at about 4800 feet per second. A round trip from transducer to bottom and back would be 240 feet, requiring 1/20 second. So - o - o, the motor must be turning at 1200 rpm, and we are taking 20 soundings per second. At this frequency you'll notice that the persistence of human vision makes the flashing light seem almost continuous."

"I understand how the thing yells 'Hello - o - o - o -there' at the bottom and times the echo coming back to see how deep the water is, but I don't see how it's going to help us much."

"Don't be too sure about that. Put a pillow on the floor and lay that 45-rpm record on top of it."

By the time Carl had done this, Jerry had the instrument working; and when he held the transducer a foot or so from the floor, it indicated around five feet. "Get that disgusted look off your face," he told Carl. "Remember that sound travels more than four times as fast in water as it does in air; so the instrument is indicating correctly. Now watch that second light closely as I move the transducer over the end of the pillow and finally pass it directly over the record."

As the transducer moved over the pillow, the sharply defined echo light became wider and less sharp. Jerry reduced the gain of the amplifier until this effect was even more pronounced. However, when the beam of sound reached the record, the light became much sharper and brighter with the more distinct echo returned from the hard surface of the plastic.

"Fine!" Jerry exulted. "It works exactly as I hoped. When my cousin and I were fooling around in the clear water of the Tippecanoe, I noticed that any large rock on the bottom gave a clearer, sharper echo than did mud or soft sand. Results with the record and pillow confirm this. Tomorrow morning we'll hook the thing on a boat and see what we shall see."

It was still raining in a desultory fashion the next morning, which was Sunday; but that didn't stop the plaque hunters. The depth-finder was installed on a small wooden boat powered by a quiet electric outboard motor. Carl operated the boat; Jerry kept watch on the depth-finder; and another boy, Frank, was along to do the diving. Several other fellows from H-3 followed along on the bank as Carl zigzagged back and forth, slowly moving downstream.

They had been operating less than fifteen minutes when Jerry gave a sharp cry: "I'm getting an echo!"

Carl worked the boat back and forth across the spot until it was determined that the object on the bottom was about the size of the plaque. Then Frank peeled off hiss clothes down to his swimming shorts and dove into the muddy water; in a few seconds he came up gasping for air and brandishing the top off a garbage can.

"You and the gadget have to do better than that," he exclaimed to Jerry through chattering teeth as they helped him over the side.

They continued working the stream like a bird dog while the boat was allowed to move gradually backward down the river. In the next hour they had three more false alarms from, respectively, a discarded license plate, an old pie tin, and a metal STOP sign. It began to rain harder, and a cold wind sprang up out of the northeast.

"I dunno if we're going to do any good or not," Frank said dejectedly. "There's a lot of trash down there. Maybe those clowns never threw the plaque into the river at all."

"Hold it!" Jerry interrupted. "Move back to the right a bit, Carl."

As Carl maneuvered the boat according to Jerry's instructions, Frank punched around on the bottom with a long pole at the point where the depth-finder was returning a hard echo.

"Well, it could be the plaque - or a thousand other things," he finally said as he crossed his arms and grabbed the bottom of his sweat shirt.

A few seconds later he went over the side and was gone for what seemed a long time. Then a strong arm shot up out of the water beside the boat, and the hand brandished the missing plaque as though it were Excalibur! A gleeful shout went up from the boys on the bank who had stuck faithfully with them all the while.

As the boat headed for the bank, the three passengers had forgotten all about the cold and the rain and the mud. Success was theirs! The "enemy" had been vanquished! They were savoring the wise words of Emerson:

"Success in your work, the finding of a better method, the better understanding that insures the better performing is hat and coat, is food and wine, is fire and horse and holiday! At least I find that any success in my work has the effect on my spirits of all these."

Carl & Jerry, by John T. Frye Carl and Jerry Frye were fictional characters in a series of short stories that were published in Popular Electronics magazine from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The stories were written by John T. Frye, who used the pseudonym "John T. Carroll," and they followed the adventures of two teenage boys, Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop, who were interested in electronics and amateur radio. In each story, Carl and Jerry would encounter a problem or challenge related to electronics, and they would use their knowledge and ingenuity to solve it. The stories were notable for their accurate descriptions of electronic circuits and devices, and they were popular with both amateur radio enthusiasts and young people interested in science and technology. The Carl and Jerry stories were also notable for their emphasis on safety and responsible behavior when working with electronics. Each story included a cautionary note reminding readers to follow proper procedures and safety guidelines when handling electronic equipment. Although the Carl and Jerry stories were fictional, they were based on the experiences of the author and his own sons, who were also interested in electronics and amateur radio. The stories continue to be popular among amateur radio enthusiasts and electronics hobbyists, and they are considered an important part of the history of electronics and technology education. I have posted 86 of them as of February 2026. p.s. You might also want to check out my "Calvin & Phineas" story(ies), a modern day teenager adventure written in the spirit of "Carl & Jerry."
Hello-o-o-o There - November 1962 The Hot Hot - March 1964 The Girl Detector -  January 1964 First Case - June 1961 The Bee's Knees - July 1964 A Rough Night - January 1961 Wrecked by a Wagon Train - February 1962 Gold Is Where You Find It - April 1956 Little "Bug" with Big Ears - January 1959 Lie Detector Tells All - November 1955 The Educated Nursing Bottle - April 1964 Going Up - March 1955 Electrical Shock - September 1955 A Low Blow - March 1961 The Black Beast - May 1960 Vox Electronik, September 1958 Pi in the Sky and Big Twist, February 1964 The Bell Bull Session, December 1961 Cow-Cow Boogie, August 1958 TV Picture, June 1955 Electronic Trap, March 1956 Geniuses at Work, June 1956 Eeeeelectricity!, November 1956 Anchors Aweigh, July 1956 Bosco Has His Day, August 1956 The Hand of Selene, November 1960 Feedback, May 1956 Abetting or Not?, October 1956 Electronic Beach Buggy, September 1956 Extra Sensory Perception, December 1956 Trapped in a Chimney, January 1956 Command Performance, November 1958 Treachery of Judas, July 1961 The Sucker, May 1963 Stereotaped New Year, January 1963 The Snow Machine, December 1960 Extracurricular Education, July 1963 Slow Motion for Quick Action, April 1963 Sonar Sleuthing, August 1963 TV Antennas, August 1955 Succoring a Soroban, March 1963 "All's Fair --", September 1963 Operation Worm Warming, May 1961 Improvising - February 1960	ROTC Riot - April 1962 Togetherness - June 1964 Blackmailing a Blonde - October 1961 Strange Voices - April 1957 "Holes" to the Rescue - May 1957 Carl and Jerry: A Rough Night - January 1961 The "Meller Smeller" - January 1957 Secret of Round Island - March 1957 The Electronic Bloodhound - November 1964 Great Bank Robbery or "Heroes All" - October 1955 Operation Startled Starling - January 1955 A Light Subject - November 1954 Dog Teaches Boy - February 1959 Too Lucky - August 1961 Joking and Jeopardy - December 1963 Santa's Little Helpers - December 1955 Two Tough Customers - June 1960 Transistor Pocket Radio, TV Receivers and Yagi Antennas, May 1955 Tunnel Stomping, March 1962 The Blubber Banisher, July 1959 The Sparkling Light, May 1962 Pure Research Rewarded, June 1962 A Hot Idea, March 1960 The Hot Dog Case, December 1954 A New Company is Launched, October 1954 Under the Mistletoe, December 1958 Electronic Eraser, August 1962 "BBI", May 1959 Ultrasonic Sound Waves, July 1955 The River Sniffer, July 1962 Ham Radio, April 1955 El Torero Electronico, April 1960 Wired Wireless, January 1962 Electronic Shadow, September 1957 Elementary Induction, June 1963 He Went That-a-Way, March1959 Electronic Detective, February 1958 Aiding an Instinct, December 1962 Two Detectors, February 1955 Tussle with a Tachometer, July 1960 Therry and the Pirates, April 1961 The Crazy Clock Caper, October 1960
Carl & Jerry: Their Complete Adventures is now available. "From 1954 through 1964, Popular Electronics published 119 adventures of Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop, two teen boys with a passion for electronics and a knack for getting into and out of trouble with haywire lash-ups built in Jerry's basement. Better still, the boys explained how it all worked, and in doing so, launched countless young people into careers in science and technology. Now, for the first time ever, the full run of Carl and Jerry yarns by John T. Frye are available again, in five authorized anthologies that include the full text and all illustrations."