[AMRadio] WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW THE CODE

[Robert Nickels]

On 11/1/2011 10:22 PM, W4AWM at aol.com wrote:
> No, but I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Like others I suspect, my introduction to ham radio came via the pages 
of Popular Electronics, the only "high tech" mag that graced the shelves 
of the my local small town drugstore.   As a young  teen in the early 
60s, my favorite features were the Novice hams I saw dutifully manning 
their S-38s and Heathkits in Herb Brier's column - and reading the 
latest electronic adventures of "Carl and Jerry".

My all-time favorite was a story titled "Extracurricular Education", 
published in the July 1963 issue.  The essence of the plot involves the 
lads bad decision to go for a high-speed ride with a hot-roddin' friend 
who ends up running the car off the road, trapping some of the occupants 
inside the wrecked car with others incapacitated outside.  Using their 
knowledge of how spark ignitions work, Carl and Jerry manage to jury-rig 
a spark transmitter using the ignition coil connected to a piece of wire 
one of the victims managed to stretch out along the ground.   Here's how 
they made it work:

"Jerry was busy cutting a series of close-space notches through the 
paint on the edge of the bottom of the dash.  "When I drag the contact 
wire across these notches" he said, "the rapid make-and-break of the 
primary current will produce an almost continuous arc across the gap"   
Very deliberately, over and over, Jerry brushed the wire along the dash 
so as to spell out in slow International Morse:

"SOS SOS TRAPPED UNDER WRECKED CAR ON OLD RIVER ROAD"

Of course they were soon rescued and the hot rod pal apologized and 
promised to mend his ways.  But the kicker for me came in how their 
emergency Morse message was intercepted - -  a 13-year old boy watching 
TV directly across the river who was studying for his ham ticket noticed 
the interference flashing on his TV screen had a dot-dash pattern to it, 
and called the sheriffs office.   "That kid's going to have some 
grateful help studying for his license, Jerry promised".

73, Bob W9RAN

PS:  I 'm fortunate to have been given a complete set of Pop'Tronics, 
but reprints of the Carl and Jerry stories are now available from:  
http://www.copperwood.com/carlandjerry.htm