January 1961 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.

In this 1961 Popular Electronics magazine story, John Frye's intrepid techno-adventurer teenagers, Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop, both resourceful amateur radio enthusiasts, find themselves stranded in a severe ice storm. Quick thinking leads them to take shelter at a remote garage. Their ingenuity is immediately tested when a medical researcher arrives with a critical emergency: his laboratory's backup power is down, and a years-long experiment is on the verge of ruin. The boys leap into action, deploying their mobile ham station to call for help. They face a cascade of technical obstacles, from an antenna frozen in a thick sheath of ice to a rapidly draining battery. With calm precision, they diagnose and solve each problem, including guiding a plane to airdrop replacement parts by using fusees (flares designed to produce a bright light even in wind and rain). Their radio knowledge and persistent troubleshooting prove vital as they work to establish a fragile lifeline to the outside world to coordinate a rescue for the essential part.

Carl & Jerry: A Rough Night

This is one time I wish we'd listened to our folks," Carl confessed as he strained his eyes to penetrate the darkness and the ice which was freezing on the windshield despite the efforts of the busy wipers.

"Yeah," agreed his pal, Jerry, who was sitting on the right side of the car but "driving" just as hard as Carl.

The boys had coaxed until their parents reluctantly agreed to let them drive to a town fifty miles from home to see the local team play basketball. The highway had been perfectly clear, and the temperature was in the high 30's when they went into the gym. But when they came out, several hours later, a light rain was falling and the temperature was dropping.

They had started for home immediately; but before they had gone five miles, they knew they were in trouble. The temperature slid down a little more, and the rain started to freeze and become mixed with flurries of sleet. As they crept along the ice-coated highway at a bare twenty miles an hour, they were even too scared to operate their mobile ham radio.

They had reason to be frightened. They passed car after car that had slid off into the shallow ditches along the side of the road and been abandoned. For the past half hour they had not seen another car or even a truck coming in the opposite direction, nor had they seen any headlights on the highway behind them.

"We'll never make it through those hills a couple of miles ahead," Carl said as he unclinched his right hand from the wheel and wiped his sweating palm on his jacket. "What would our folks want us to do?"

"They'd want us to keep from getting hurt or stacking up the car," Jerry answered promptly; "and I'm with them." He used his handkerchief to wipe the steam from the windshield. "That means we'd better tie up at the first place we can get in out of the weather. If we could just let the folks know - hey, take it easy ! See that light ahead?"

Carl lifted his foot from the accelerator and let the car coast. As they came closer, the boys saw that the light came from a bare bulb on the end of a pipe gooseneck over a "Garage" sign on the front of a small concrete block building. Carl touched the brakes, and the car slowly spun around in a half circle and came to rest in the garage drive.

"Whew! That was close!" Jerry gasped as he opened his door and stepped out. His feet promptly slid out from under him, and he had to grab the door to keep from falling.

"How did you two ever get here ?" a voice called from the garage. Carl and Jerry saw a short, powerfully-built, pleasant-looking man with a butch haircut standing in the open doorway. "You're the first car I've seen on that highway in an hour," he said. "Come on in out of the wet."

The inside of the small building was cosily warm, thanks to a potbellied coal stove glowing over in one corner. The man introduced himself as Chuck Ray and said that his house was right behind the garage; he had come out to fire the stove so the garage would not be so cold when he went to work the next morning. The boys explained their predicament and asked if they might use his telephone to call home and if they could stay in the garage for the night.

"I think we can do better than that," Chuck said with a friendly grin. "I sort of cotton to a couple of young fellows who've got sense enough to get off the highway when it's not safe to drive. If that phone is still working, you call your folks and tell them the wife and I will put you up tonight."

The telephone was working, and Jerry's call to his home went right through. Mr. Bishop answered, and Jerry quickly explained the situation. Mr. Bishop said he was glad the boys had used their heads and that he would call Carl's folks at once. Before Jerry could reply, there was a click in the receiver and the telephone went dead.

"It's no use," Chuck said as Jerry jiggled the button in the telephone cradle. "I'm surprised the ice hasn't taken the telephone wires down before this, and the power lines, too, for that matter -"

Right in the middle of his sentence, the lights in the garage went out.

"Me and my big mouth!" Chuck muttered as he stumbled around in the darkness hunting for his flashlight. He finally found it and, with its aid, he found an old coal-oil lantern as well.

The three of them were standing there in the feeble yellow light shining through the lantern's smoky globe when there was a loud knock at the side door of the garage. Chuck opened the door to let in two men, one well-dressed and the other in working clothes.

"I'm Dr. Carney, director of the research laboratory across the highway," the better-dressed man introduced himself. "This is Sam Vernon, our maintenance man. We're in trouble, and we hope you can help."

Sam placed an object wrapped in a greasy cloth on the bench beside the smoking lantern. He spread back the edges of the cloth to reveal the broken parts of a gasoline-engine distributor.

"That's the distributor from the engine of the auxiliary power plant at the lab," Dr. Carney explained. "This afternoon, of all afternoons, one of our men was moving some pipe on an electric truck in the basement. He misjudged distance and rammed the end of a two-inch pipe right through the distributor. It's imperative we get power back at the lab within the next two hours. Can you fix that distributor?

"Chuck poked around in the broken pieces of metal and Bakelite with a forefinger, then shook his head. "The only thing that will fix that distributor is a new one," Chuck said bluntly; "and I'm certain you won't find one closer than Center City. The electric company can't do much with the power lines until this is over, and your auxiliary plant won't run without a distributor. Only a woolly worm with a sandpaper belly could travel on this ice, and he couldn't make a round trip to Center City in two hours. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait until the lines are repaired or the ice melts off the highway."

Dr. Carney paced nervously up and down the dimly-lit garage as he spoke again. "Let me try to explain how important it is for us to have power at the lab. Over there in a tiny sealed cubicle, an experiment that involves literally years of tedious, painstaking work is coming to a climax. Certain cultures are growing in that little room under carefully controlled conditions of temperature, humidity, ionization, and radiation. If power can be restored to the various pieces of equipment maintaining the proper conditions within two hours, the experiment can be carried to its conclusion. If power is not restored, the whole experiment, with its hundreds of steps, will have to be started over."

He paused for an instant and then said very slowly and quietly, "I can't be too specific, but let me say this: if that experiment can be carried to a conclusion now, and if it turns out as we hope, the restoration of power could mean that victory over one of humanity's greatest scourges would come three years sooner."

A long, thoughtful silence settled over the garage. Finally, Jerry cleared his throat and said in a hoarse voice, "We have a mobile radio station in our car outside. Maybe we could get word to Center City and they could manage to send the distributor to us somehow."

Chuck was sliding back the big door of the garage before Jerry finished speaking. "We'll push the car in," he said. "It's worth a try and a lot better than doing nothing."

Once the car was inside the garage, the boys saw with relief that the wooden rafters of the ceiling were well above the tip of the whip antenna fastened to the car's rear bumper.

Jerry turned on the receiver and quickly flipped from one band to another. "Seventy-five and forty meters are out because of static," he observed. "We can't buck the kilowatt QRM on twenty with our flea-power. Fifteen and ten sound dead, but at least there's no QRM or QRN on them. Maybe some of the boys will be listening on ten for ground-wave contacts."

He switched on the transmitter. After it had warmed up for a minute, he pushed the button on the side of the carbon mike. The motor generator in the trunk compartment whined, but Jerry soon released the push-to-talk button without speaking into the mike. "Something's wrong," he announced as he frowned at the little meter sitting on top of the dash. "I see practically nothing on the field strength meter."

"I bet it's the ice detuning the antenna!" Carl exclaimed, pointing at the quarter-inch-thick sheath coating the slender whip.

Chuck, man of action, had already picked up a propane torch from the bench and lighted it. He carefully played the blue flame up and down the antenna until the ice melted and fell off. Now when Jerry peaked up the transmitter on the ten-meter band, the field strength meter indicated satisfactorily.

"CQ, CQ, CQ Center City with emergency traffic," he said into the mike, and signed his call. He repeated this three times, then cut the transmitter and listened across the band. Not a signal was heard. He tried a longer call, with the same result.

But Jerry didn't give up. After the seventh transmission, the straining ears in the garage heard a very faint and faraway voice repeating Jerry's call. As the operator of the other station signed over, he said he was in Center City!

Jerry went back to him and asked if he had a telephone. There was a long silence, and then the station operator came on and said he could not copy Jerry. Could Jerry do something to increase the strength of his signal just a little bit?

Hurriedly Jerry checked the transmitter tuning, but it was right on the nose and putting out everything it had.

"Let's turn the car so it points toward Center City," Carl suggested. He started tugging at the wheel and pushing on the doorpost. They all helped.

The other station was still calling, and was coming in stronger. When Jerry went back to him, the Center City operator reported that he was able to read Jerry's signals quite well.

"When the antenna is mounted on the rear bumper, the car acts as a director and puts a lobe of signal out in front," Carl explained in a whisper to Sam.

Dr. Carney took over the mike and told the operator in Center City to call a certain number and explain the situation. Identifying numbers from the power plant and the distributor were passed along.

It seemed as if hours passed before they heard him again, but it was actually less than a half hour by Carl's wristwatch.

"I've got the information," the faint voice said; "do you copy ?"

Jerry pushed the button. The relay clicked, but the generator didn't start. "The battery's gone dead!" Jerry groaned as he noted the dimming of the car's dome light.

But Chuck was already busy. He jerked up the hood and snapped the clips of a pair of heavy car-starting cables to the battery terminals. Clips on the other ends of the cables were fastened to the terminals of a battery he took from a charging rack. "Now try her," he said.

The transmitter took right off, and Jerry told the frantically-calling Center City station to go ahead.

"Your man has located a new distributor," the operator reported. "He's on his way now to pick it up and take it to the airport. The rain isn't freezing here, and conditions are not so bad; so a small plane is going to try to drop the distributor to you on a parachute. Can you arrange some sort of signal he can see to locate you

"Can do!" Chuck exclaimed, and he grabbed a handful of red truck fusees from a box beneath the bench.

Arrangements were completed and relayed to the pilot at the airport who said he would take off immediately. Jerry stayed with the mobile station while the other four went outside to arrange the fusees in a big square along the deserted highway.

It was not long before they heard the throbbing of the plane motor. After a couple of passes over the bright red glow cast by the lit fusees, the plane lights came straight toward them down the highway flying very low. Shortly after the plane roared over, Carl saw a small parachute floating down toward him. He grabbed the carton dangling beneath it the way he would snare a football pass, while Chuck grabbed up a fusee and waved a signal of success to the plane that roared off into the night.

They all went across the highway to the laboratory, where Sam and Chuck installed the new distributor in jig time and started the generator. Lights came on all over the building, and they trooped upstairs to watch Dr. Carney make an anxious, hurried check of several meters mounted in a big console.

"We made it!" he announced, and then slumped wearily into a chair. "It was close, but conditions inside the cubicle are still within the limits set for the experiment."

We can hash all this over in the morning," Chuck said with a satisfied yawn, as he headed for the door. "Right now, boys, let's go home and get some sleep. It's been a long, rough night."

Soon Carl and Jerry were snuggled down in a warm, comfortable bed. Just before they went to sleep, Jerry observed: "Carl, a half dozen times tonight I wouldn't have given a burned-out resistor for our chances. One thing after another kept going wrong. But all of us, working together, jumped on each new obstacle as it reared its ugly head; and everything turned out fine. Don't let me forget this, will you?"

"Uh-uh," Carl agreed drowsily.

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."