August 1963 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 August 1963 adventure, teenage techno-investigators
Carl and Jerry use their home-brew sonar device to help the
local sheriff nab a couple bank robbers. The 'Hydro Probe' mentioned
in the article was a real product manufactured by the Raymond
Development Company of Watertown, Massachusetts (no longer in
business). Enjoy.
Carl & Jerry: Sonar Sleuthing
By John T. Frye W9EGV
Jerry inched forward slowly, keeping his depth ... suddenly
the end of the sonar unit bumped into a large object in the
water.
Up periscope!" Jerry called to Carl, and the latter released
the large cylindrical object he had been holding on the bottom
of Jerry's full bathtub and watched it slowly rise to the surface.
The youths were checking out their latest "invention," a
hand-held portable sonar unit for use in scuba diving. Actually
it was just a crude copy of the Hydro Probe manufactured and
sold by the Raymond Development Company of Watertown, Massachusetts.
While the unit the boys had made was much larger and clumsier
than the commercial version, it operated on the same general
principle.
They had simply installed inside a large paint bucket a flashing-light
type transistorized depth-finder. The depth-finder was the same
kind they had used at Parvoo University to locate a metal plaque
at the bottom of the river. A five-inch diameter circle had
been cut from the center of the airtight lid, and a heavy sheet
of Plexiglas had been cemented over this opening so that the
depth-finder dial mounted just behind it could be seen. The
transducer had been fastened to the outside bottom of the can,
and the cable from it led inside through a waterproof seal.
Finally, the on-off/sensitivity control was connected through
a speed-reducing gear train to a tiny permanent magnet reversible
electric motor. The motor, in turn, was controlled by a spring-loaded,
normally-off, double-pole, double-throw toggle switch mounted
on the side of the paint bucket. An unpierced nursing bottle
nipple, with its rim cemented to the bucket, slipped over the
bat handle of this switch, and permitted control of the sonar
device inside its waterproof seal.
"That does it," Carl said, lifting the dripping unit from
the bathtub and holding it in front of his face by means of
the two strong handles soldered to the sides of the can. "It
barely floats, so it should be easy to maneuver under water,
and it doesn't leak a drop. Let's take it to the old quarry
and try it out."
"O. K.," Jerry agreed. "You load the scuba gear in the car
while I dry this thing off. Mom'll kill us if we drip water
on her floors."
A half hour later the boys left the highway and traveled
a short distance along a side road until they reached the abandoned
quarry. They were just getting out of their car when they were
surprised by the voice of the county sheriff.
"Over here, fellows," he called, emerging from the undergrowth.
They could see the sheriff's car parked behind some bushes growing
between the road and the edge of the steep-sided quarry.
He was an old friend, and Carl did not hesitate to ask, "Hey,
what are you hiding from?"
"Remember that branch-bank holdup at the shopping center
a little over a year ago?" he asked. "The two men we think did
the job ran through a roadblock and came out on the highway
with the state troopers on their tail. They took off on this
road and lost the state police for a few minutes - about fifteen.
The police closed in from both ends of this short road and took
them not a quarter of a mile from here, but none of the bank
loot was on them."
"We searched every inch of the road and a hundred yards either
side," the sheriff continued. "The prosecutor didn't have enough
on them to try them for the bank job, but they both did a year
in the pen for possession of a stolen car. Their sentences were
up last week, and I'm staked out here on a hunch those two birds
stashed the dough away, and will try to come back for it."
"Maybe they threw the money in the quarry," Carl suggested.
"We thought of that, and state police divers spent two whole
days exploring the bottom, yard by yard. They had to do most
of their searching by touch because working of the sand pits
along the little creek feeding into the quarry keeps the water
riled up so you can't see more than a foot or so in front of
you. The divers found old tires, empty beer cans, rolls of rusty
fence wire, baby buggies - everything but money. But what devilment
are you two ..."
Before he could finish his question, an emergency call tripped
the squelch of the radio installed in his car. The city police
had just received a telephoned tip that a supermarket on the
other side of town was to be held up, and the dispatcher relayed
the information along with the message that all mobile units
in the county were ordered to converge on the spot.
"Stick around, I'll be back," the sheriff said as he headed
for the highway.
Carl and Jerry walked down a slope to the edge of the quarry.
Across and to the right, the sheer walls of the large pit went
almost straight down to the surface of the muddy water some
thirty feet below. Where they were standing, a thick curtain
of vines grew over the edge and cascaded down until the vine
ends trailed in the water. Over to the left, however, a steep
path zigzagged down to a narrow ledge running around the quarry
a foot or so above the water.
They lugged their gear down this path, and Carl helped Jerry
put on the scuba outfit. In practically every other physical
endeavor, Carl was easily Jerry's superior; but in swimming,
the chubby youth was as much at home in the water as an otter.
"Blubber floats better than muscle." was Carl's succinct and
disparaging explanation.
With the diving equipment in place and checked out, Jerry
picked up the portable sonar and slid beneath the murky water.
Going down a few feet, he worked the rubber-covered switch handle
to turn the unit on and adjust the sensitivity.
The two glowing spots of neon light on the dial of the depth-sounder
were easily seen when the Plexiglas disk was held close to his
eyes, and he was delighted to find the crude affair working
exactly as anticipated. Not only did it indicate how far the
bottom was beneath him, but the stone walls of the quarry also
returned sharp echoes to indicate their distance from his location.
Moreover, when he turned on his back and pointed the instrument
straight up, an echo was returned from the air-water interface
that indicated how deep he was swimming.
He played with the instrument for several minutes, trying
it out at different depths and "swimming blind" with only the
sonar ranging indication of the instrument to tell him how deep
he was swimming and to warn him when he approached the bottom
or sides of the quarry. While he was swimming some fifteen feet
below the surface toward the vine-covered wall of the pit, the
distance-indicating spot of light suddenly jumped counterclockwise
from the ten-foot to the five-foot position. Swinging the instrument
slightly to either side or up or down returned the spot of light
to the more distant indication.
Keeping his depth, Jerry inched slowly forward until the
front end of his paint bucket bumped into something suspended
in the water. Inspection with his hands revealed it was a large
metal container of the kind pressure-gun grease is kept in at
a filling station. A thin wire led straight up from the bail,
and Jerry followed this upward with his hands until he came
to the surface.
He discovered he was behind the screen of vines and that
the thin strand of steel piano wire ran up through these vines
to the top of the quarry. He was about to call to Carl, whom
he could see through the leaves, when he was stopped by the
sound of a man's voice above him yelling at Carl.
"Just stay where you are and keep your mouth shut, buddy,
and you won't get hurt. My friend, Chauncey, and I just want
to pick up something we left here a while back. When we get
it, we'll go our way and you can go yours."
"Go on and pull up that grease bucket, Bert," Jerry heard
another voice say. "I'll keep the gun on him. I can't wait to
get my hands into that lovely green grease. You know, I'll bet
that tricky sheriff was hiding out, waiting on us. Man, he was
really flying low when we met him on the highway. That phony
tip of yours was a real smart idea."
Very quietly Jerry eased himself up on the rock ledge. Then,
after a short search, he picked up a piece of broken broom handle
floating near his feet and twisted it in the piano wire so that
a couple of turns went around it.
A few seconds later he felt the man above fumbling and tugging
at the wire.
"Come here and help me, Chauncey.
The wire must be tangled in the leaves or something, and
the footing ain't very good on this slope. I sure don't want
to drop the end of the wire. That kid can't go anywhere with
us watching him. Take hold of that side of the stick and help
me pull."
A stronger tug came on the wire, and Jerry slowly rose to
his feet, giving slack. Then, grasping the piece of broom handle
with both hands, he leaped from the ledge throwing his full
weight onto the wire. The result was startling. Two bodies came
hurtling down from above and hit the water with great splashes.
A third smaller splash was made by the revolver.
When Jerry surfaced, he saw Carl leaping up the steep path
as if he were a mountain goat. Listening to the men behind him
spluttering and cursing as they clawed their way up on the ledge,
Jerry decided Carl had a good idea; he swam quickly to the foot
of the path and climbed out of the water.
The two men were starting toward him along the ledge, and
he didn't even take time to remove his air tanks or swimming
fins as he started a clumsy ascent up the path. Carl said afterward,
that, as he watched Jerry frantically slipping and floundering
on the path, all he could think of was a circus seal climbing
up a stepladder to get a fish.
When the two men started to follow Jerry, Carl pelted them
with stones. Jerry struggled out of the diving equipment and
joined the fight at the top of the path. Using only jagged chunks
of rock for weapons, the two of them easily held the men at
bay until the sheriff came back a half hour later.
After the boys had explained the situation and the law officer
had Chauncey and Bert safely handcuffed to the steering wheel
of his car, Jerry dove down and brought up both the revolver
and the end of the piano wire. The grease bucket was hauled
to the surface and opened. Inside, lying on sand used for ballast,
were several neat packages of currency.
"Every dollar is here," the sheriff announced when he finished
counting it. "All the time those police divers were groping
around on the bottom, the money was hanging right over their
heads waiting to be found by a gadget like that one of yours.
Those two had this planned right from the start. Instead of
taking off down this road to get away from the troopers, they
were heading for this quarry to hide the dough. Well, boys,
that little electronic doodad of yours sure did well by you
today. The insurance company has a pretty good reward out for
the recovery of this money, and it's all yours."
"How about you?" Carl demanded.
"You should get a third of it. We would have been sunk if
you hadn't come back when you did."
"Nope. A sheriff in this state can't accept a reward in cases
like this. It's reward enough for me to see those two clowns
get what's coming to them."
He paused while his eyes roved from the homemade sonar rig
to the empty grease bucket. A mischievous grin spread over his
face as he concluded:
"So help me, when I write up my report, I'm going to
call this The Case of the Two Buckets!"
Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop were two teenage boys whose
love of electronics, Ham radio, and all things technical afforded them ample opportunities
to satisfy their own curiosities, assist law enforcement and neighbors with solving
problems, and impressing – and sometimes toying with - friends based on their proclivity
for serious undertakings as well as fun.
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-
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 Eraser, August 1962
- 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
|
-
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 1956
-
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
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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." |
Posted March 18, 2014