May 1957 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.

This "Holes to the Rescue" episode of John Frye's "Carl and Jerry" technodrama series appeared in a 1957 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. While on a fishing trip, the two technically skilled lads discover an Air Force ham radio operator who was injured in a car crash. Realizing the victim's conventional radio equipment had been destroyed, they ingeniously construct an emergency communication system. Using Jerry's new Regency transistor converter, Carl's portable broadcast receiver, and improvised antennas crafted from their fishing gear, they create a working ham radio. They successfully transmit a distress call which is received by an operator in Tucson, Arizona, who contacts local authorities. A rescue helicopter arrives promptly, saving the serviceman's life. The story serves as both an exciting adventure and a powerful demonstration of the revolutionary potential of portable, battery-powered transistor technology, showcasing American ingenuity, preparedness, and the practical value of amateur radio skills in emergencies. Can you figure out why the title was chosen?

A comprehensive list of all the Carl & Jerry episodes posted on RF Cafe is at the bottom of the page.

Carl & Jerry: "Holes" to the Rescue

By John T. Frye W9EGV

It was a perfect spring morning for their fishing trip, thought Carl, as he stepped out of his back door and started across the yard to the basement entrance of Jerry's home. While electronics was unquestionably the boys' chief interest, they also engaged in many other activities that took them out-of-doors.

Carl clumped down the basement steps in his hip boots and opened the door to find his fishing partner all dressed for the occasion, even to the battered black felt hat with flys stuck in the band - but the objects on the bench before him looked a lot more like electronic gadgets than fishing tackle. True, Jerry's casting rod was leaning against the wall at the back of the bench, but a wire clipped to the bottom of the rod ran into the back of a little gray, crackle-finished box about 3" x 4" x 5". There were five black knobs on the front of this little cabinet, and a slide rule dial was housed in a bulge at the top. Another coaxial lead came out the rear of the cabinet and went to the back of an a.c.-d.c. broadcast receiver on the bench.

"I thought we were going fishing," Carl said sarcastically.

"I am fishing - for DX," Jerry answered with a teasing grin. "Take a listen."

He turned the large center knob a bit, and a soft Oklahoma drawl came from the speaker of the broadcast set, but the voice was signing a "DL" amateur call that indicated he was operating a G.I. station in Germany.

"How's that for 10-meter reception on an improvised basement whip antenna?" Jerry demanded.

"Slightly terrific, but where's the receiver?"

"Let's see how good your memory is: do you recall the cover picture on the September, 1956, issue of Popular Electronics?"

"Certainly. She had blue eyes, brown hair, was wearing a black, off-the-shoulder dress, and her name was Diane," Carl recited promptly.

"Sometimes I wonder about you," Jerry said darkly. "I wanted you to recall that she was holding one of these Regency ATC-1 transistor ham-band converters and that there was a story about it inside the magazine."

"I remember the article, but how did you get hold of one?"

"Dad got it for my birthday. I'll admit I had to do a little selling job on him. I explained that it was a 'natural' to permit me to operate mobile without tearing the car receiver apart to bring out filament and plate leads. You see, this little transistor converter is powered by three penlite cells here at the back.

"But I think what really won Dad over was the fact that having such a converter would make it unnecessary to lug my heavy communications receiver up to our lake cottage this year. He really griped about that last summer. Now, when we get up there, I'll just slip this little thirty-ounce job out of the car, take it into the cottage, and run it into this a.c.-d.c. set we always take along, just as I'm doing right now. Then I'll be able to hear every ham band from 80 through 10 in fine style."

"All very interesting," Carl said, "but it's not putting any fish in the skillet. Mom's waiting in the station wagon to haul us to the river."

"Let's go!" Jerry said, as he unfastened the little converter, wrapped it in heavy cloth, and placed it in his tackle box. "I'll just take this along, and if the fish don't bite too voraciously, I'll slip it out of the case and show you how much electronic equipment can be put in a small space these days without crowding."

It was only a short drive to the river; and before long the boys had transferred their gear to a sturdy boat, clamped Carl's powerful little outboard motor to the stern, and were heading upstream. They had a long ride ahead of them - they always went up the river until they could no longer see the little forked sticks that were placed at the edge of the bank for use as fishing-pole rests. Carl contended that as long as you saw these sticks you could be pretty sure the river was "fished out." That meant they had to go nearly eight miles up the river to a section hard to reach by any means other than a boat. There was an old abandoned logging road along one bank, but it was too rugged for modern low-slung cars; so this section of river was free of Carl's despised little forked sticks.

To while away the time on the way up the river, Carl got out his little portable transistorized broadcast receiver and set it on the seat cushion beside him. The outboard was well muffled, and the boys enjoyed the music delivered by the powerful little set. A stiff breeze was blowing, and the boat jarred rhythmically as it slapped the waves. Jerry snuggled down in the prow of the boat with his hat pulled over his eyes to keep out the sun. Carl sat erect at the stern and guided the boat.

Suddenly, as he felt Carl throttle back the motor, Jerry sat up and pushed his hat to the back of his head.

"Look over there on the bank, Jer!" Carl said, swinging the bow of the boat in the direction he was pointing. "A car's slipped off the old road and crashed against that big sycamore."

Sure enough, a recent model car had its hood jammed and wrinkled against the trunk of a huge sycamore growing right at the edge of the water. The windshield on the driver's side was shattered. Carl let the front of the boat run up on the shelving sandbar that jutted out from the bank, and both boys leaped out and ran toward the car.

"Oh, oh!" Carl exclaimed with a white face as he stopped abruptly near the back of the car. On the ground beside the open door of the car was a crumpled figure in an Air Force uniform. His eyes were closed, and his face was blood-smeared.

"Is-is-is he dead ?" Jerry whispered.

As if in answer, a low moan came from the injured young man. Quickly the boys determined that no one else was in the car. Almost subconsciously, they noted the ten-meter whip on the rear bumper of the car and the converter fastened beneath the dash; so they knew the poor guy on the ground was a fellow ham.

"What are we going to do," Carl asked. "Shall we load him into the boat and take him back to town?"

"I'm afraid to try that," Jerry said. "You know what we learned in that first aid course about not trying to move a badly injured person. He almost certainly has some broken bones. Did you see how his knee smashed that car radio? I'll bet every tube in it is broken. And by the looks of that steering wheel he may have some bad chest injuries. I'm afraid to risk a rough boat ride."

"Well, do you want to stay here while I go back for help in the boat ?"

"Guess that's about all we can do, although it'll take a long time; and this fellow may not have too much time. If we just had some way to call for help -"

"How about using his mobile rig ?"

"That's no go. You saw the receiver - it's entirely smashed. Even if the transmitter would still work - which is doubtful - we couldn't rely on sending out a blind call and not know whether it was received or not. Guess you had better get started - Hey! Wait a minute! Let's see if that transmitter will work."

Jerry slid gingerly into the driver's seat and turned on the transmitter filament switch. In a few seconds he picked up the microphone and pressed the push-to-talk switch. As he did so, the whir of a dynamotor came from the closed trunk, and he saw the pointer of a little field strength meter mounted over the rear-view mirror swing up-scale.

"That proves the transmitter works - but we still don't have a receiver," Carl said.

"Bring your transistor receiver up here by the car while I get my transistor converter out of the tackle box," Jerry ordered.

In a few minutes he had taken a short length of copper wire from his tackle box and fashioned it into a crude four-turn coil a couple of inches in diameter. The ends of this coil were fastened to the tip and shell of the plug on the end of the coaxial lead coming from the output of the converter.

"Now let's tape this coil on the outside of the case of your set near the cold end of the loopstick antenna on the inside," Jerry said, pulling a roll of friction tape from his tackle box.

In a matter of seconds the coil was fastened into place so that the output of the converter would be induced into the receiver's antenna; the receiver was tuned to 1230 kilocycles; and both it and the converter were turned on. The boys were bitterly disappointed when nothing but a rushing noise was heard.

"Hey! We were so excited we forgot the antenna," Carl pointed out.

Only a few more seconds were needed to connect a short piece of wire from the bottom of Jerry's steel casting rod to the antenna input jack of the receiver, and immediately several strong 'phone signals were heard.

"You get into the car and work the transmitter while I work the receiver," Jerry said. "First, just hold the carrier on for a second while I spot your frequency. Okay, I've got it. Now blast loose with a distress call. Let's not fool around with 'S O S,' 'May Day,' or anything like that. Just use the good old c.w. emergency call of 'QRRR.' Every ham should recognize that."

Obediently, Carl pushed the button on the mike and began to call : "QRRR, QRRR, QRRR! This is W9EGV calling. QRRR, QRRR, QRRR! This is W Nine Easy George Victor calling QRRR and tuning around this frequency."

As the transmitter snapped off, the loud-speaker of the little transistor receiver burst forth with: "W9EGV, W9EGV, W9EGV; this is W7XXX of Tucson, Arizona, returning. What's wrong, OM ?"

Quickly Carl explained the situation and asked the Arizona ham to put in an emergency long-distance call to the police department of the boys' home town. This the W7 did while the boys stood by. In a surprisingly short time, he was back with a report that the message had been delivered and that help would soon be on the way. The boys signed with him after promising to let him know how things turned out. Then they got some water from the river and washed some of the blood from the face of the young man, who was still moaning faintly.

"It will take an ambulance a long time to get up that road," Carl remarked. "I don't see how this fellow ever got up here at all. He must be from the air base south of town or he would have known -"

He broke off speaking as he heard an odd sound. Looking up, the boys saw a helicopter hovering directly above them. As they watched in fascination, it settled gently on the sand spit that ran out into the stream. A couple of corpsmen bearing a stretcher leaped out and ran toward them.

"The police called us and said one of our men was hurt up here," one of the corpsmen explained, as they gently and expertly slid the injured youth onto the stretcher. "The chopper was the quickest way to get him out. You kids certainly used your noodles in not trying to move him. With the injuries he has, trying to move him without a stretcher would almost certainly have meant his death."

After the whirlybird rose vertically into the air and took off down river, Carl and Jerry called the W7 in Tucson and reported the success of the operation. Then they began to disassemble their improvised receiver.

"Jer," Carl said slowly, "this experience really has convinced me that transistors are here to stay. I was just thinking that we were receiving that station from Tucson without the aid of a single tube. All we had to snag his voice out of the air was a bunch of negative electrons and positive 'holes' moving through some semiconductors. A year or so ago, I remember, it was considered quite a feat to make a transistor work clear across the broadcast band, but we were receiving that station on twenty-nine megacycles! We've sure come a long way."

"Yes," Jerry agreed; "it certainly makes you think. After the way that hay-wire combination worked, I can see no reason at all why we shouldn't have excellent transistor communications receivers in a very short time. They should be lightweight, rugged, and about one-tenth the size of present communications receivers. Being powered with a few flashlight batteries, they'll be entirely independent of the light line, and a.c. hum will be no problem."

"If this trend keeps on, a fellow is going to be able to pack a whole ham station into a shoe box!" Carl exclaimed.

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 81 of them as of October 2025. 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."
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	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."