Live Wire with a Loot Locator
June 1969 Popular Electronics

June 1969 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.

Cark Kohler's indefatigable and unflappable electronics do-it-yourselfer, the lesser half of Friend Wife, is at it again in this "Live Wire with a Loot Locator" technodrama in a 1969 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. His latest junk box endeavor is the Kohler Loot Locator, which, per his ambitious claims, will unearth - literally - endless treasures buried in the sandy beaches surrounding their humble abode. Of course the missus is typically dubious of his success, given past brainchildren and displays of electromechanical prowess. This time proved different, for a reason you will discover upon reading the story. That Sonalert mentioned being part of the Loot Locator is an audible alarm product still manufactured by Mallory (the capacitor people). The Heathkit color TV cost about $400 in 1969, which is the equivalent of about $3,443 in 2024 money. Throw in another couple hundred for the "heap" of second-hand HP (back when Hewlett Packard made quality TE and not just computers) test equipment and a nice dinner, and that would have been quite a haul.

Other Carl Kohler masterpieces: "Live Wire with a Loot Locator," June 1969, "The Great Electron-Pedantic Project," "Dig That Reel Flat Response," "I Married a Superheterodyne," "Unpopular Electronics," "Operation Chaos," "Thin Air, My Foot," "High Tide in the Tweeter," "The R/C Cloud," "Hi-Fi Guest List," "Kool-Keeping Kwiz ," "Boner Box," and "McWatts." Also, be sure to read "Carl Kohler's Life & Times per Son, Christoverre."

Live Wire with a Loot Locator

By Carl Kohler

Beyond an open window of the new workshack, the Gulf of Mexico murmured frothily upon a promising beach. Intently completing the electronic project at hand, I didn't hear Friend Wife approaching until she was already past the door I had unwittingly left unlocked and ajar.

Normally I might've fended her off with evasive tact or sickening diplomacy. Failing that, I have a grouch act calculated to strike terror in the heart of man or beast, child or distant relative. It works keen on the lady, too.

But she was shrewd enough to have brought with her the price of admission to my intellectual's sanctuary: the steaming pot of fresh coffee smelled wonderful and my defenses suddenly suffered undeniable voltage droop. Here, then, was my lovely, illogical bride-the lady who only last year saw fit to have my 3-element beam strung with Christmas lights, and then had the gall to feign hurt dismay at my resultant rage. Oh, I've been on to her for years. It's staying ahead of her that keeps me sleepless and tossing fretfully some nights. The communications gap in the same generation is called Marriage.

"What'cha building this time that ain't gonna work?" she demanded, her eyes boldly narrowing at the sight of the excitingly designed home-crafted instrument before me. "Hey, that gismo looks awful familiar, Buster!"

Smoothly sipping the delicious brew, I shifted position casually in a sly effort to block her view of the nearly finished electronic metal detector. "Don't let me keep you," I hinted delicately. "I know you must have many little tasks awaiting your skill and diligence, dear."

"What tasks?"

"Surely you want the neighbors, here, to know that the lady of the house is a militant homemaker whose dwelling sparkles with---"

She stepped forward, peering harshly over me at the detector. "I loathe housework and I don't care who knows it! Hey, I remember that screwy thing! It was supposed to find gold or uranium - or something! And all it ever found was a buncha lousy bones!" She chuckled meanly, grinning down at me with the expression of a woman who has just found an open wound to salt. "Yeah, that was really the craziest flop you ever butchered the budget to put together! Remember?"

I stared into the distance with dignity. She had me. It was true. I had built a rare earth detector. The same one, in fact, that now lay-considerably modified and improved-before her jeering eyes. Due to a cruel quirk of a heartless fate, I'd made a small miscalculation - substituting animal horn for Bakelite in the search coil - which had caused the detector to respond only to bone, improbable as it still seemed these many years later.

"You have a fantastic memory," I said coldly.

"Sure have!" She sounded proud.

"Then, surely you must recall that memorable day when you brightly informed me that it took two coats of paint to cover all my QSL Cards." I smiled thinly up at her. "If we're going to relive old errors, let's be impartial, eh ?"

"You had to mention it, didn't you?"

I shrugged. "No, I didn't have to. I could just as easily have recalled the time I caught you using my stock of expensive tantalum capacitors for hair - rollers or that shattering instance when you ---"

"Never mind all that," she chattered hastily, pointing to the instrument atop the workbench. "What I wanna hear is what this piece of fancy junk is supposed to be, anyway."

Standing tall, I drew myself to my full height, assuming the patient mien of a man-a superbly gifted, saintly modest, highly intelligent and utterly articulate man-who is about to attempt the heartbreaking chore of explaining quantum theory to an aborigine in small, easily understood words (if not a language so explicit that it teeters on the borderline of basic babytalk). She stiffened just as she always does when she senses I'm going to talk down to her.

"This ultra-sensitive and rather sophisticated instrument is the Kohler Loot Locator," I informed her with a kindly smile. "It's modified and brought sternly up-to-date. Comprised of all manner of truly efficient components, including silicon transistors, a 9-volt alkaline battery, a varactor tuning-control, a Faraday shielded search coil, a Sonalert and a ---

"What's it do?" she whined impatiently.

"--- very stable circuit of original design that is charmingly representative of every advance made in the art and science of solid-state technology, this stunningly effective prototype will operate most beneficently in our behalf."

"Doing what?" The doll was maddeningly single-minded. "What's it gonna accomplish, big shot.?"

"In two words : locate loot."

"Locate whaat?" She wore a bewildered expression.

"Loot . . . swag . . . booty . . . treasure," I chanted, knowing a dreamy film of greed was glazing my eyes. "That beach out there is jam-packed with ancient pirate treasure - and the Kohler Loot Locator is going to find it!"

She hooted raucously, like a banshee trying to win a hollering contest. I've heard that damning laughter many times before during the years of our relationship. It generally indicates that she is of the opinion that I've lost my mind. I suffered the derisive snorting with a face carved from the granite of total resistance to ridicule.

"Pirate treasure! Oh, wow!" She wiped tears of merriment from her eyes with the back of her hand. Very ladylike, very graceful. "Man, you're too much! Swag! Beautiful!" She dissolved into another spasm of mirth, shrilling hysterically.

Restraint cracked. I spat cold coffee back into the cup, gesturing abruptly toward the door. "All right, laughing-girl, now you know what I'm preparing to do. Your morbid, unsympathetic curiosity has been satisfied. Kindly trudge back to your house and break a few dishes or burn some food."

A hand gently touched my arm.

"Aw, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! Honest. I just lost my head when you were putting me on about looking for loot with - her mouth quivered with more laughter but she fought it back - that thing!"

"So who's putting you on?" I arched an eyebrow at her, questioningly. "I'm perfectly serious."

"You're perfectly nuts," she declared, all sham humility vanishing, "if you actually think you're going to find any - any swag or treasure with that bone-picking thingamajig!"

"It's been modified. And I have complete assurance from the oldest, most trustworthy residents of this area that there is indeed bona fide pirate loot stashed in those bleached sands." I clutched the light, mobile Locator protectively to my chest. "You'll change your tune when I prove there were pirates here!"

"Oh, I know there were pirates here. In fact, there still are!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"One of them sold me some bait, yesterday, when I went fishing!"

I glared at her in silence.

"Tell me," she said, softening her expression and voice. "Why didn't you try to find pirate treasure with this whatchamacallit when we were living on the California coast?"

"Simple. There never has been any pirate loot buried out there, no matter what the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce may insist to the contrary."

"How do you know?"

I bent a pitying smirk of undisguised superiority upon her. "Sheer logic and a rudimentary understanding of human psychology would help you to recognize instantly the validity of my theory. Too bad, being female, you're naturally exempt from these necessary mental qualities, sister!"

"So?"

"So what self-determined pirate was likely to step ashore - much less be there long enough to bury his treasure-with all those missions along the coast. Why, there were probably even more of them during the pirating days."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Just the risk of being apprehended and sent to church against their will, that's all." I grinned triumphantly. "Elementary logic. I can well imagine how your alleged mind balks at it."

"It doesn't even figure."

"It doesn't, eh ?"

"Heck, no!"

I handed her the cup of cold coffee. "When was the last time you ever heard of a bunch of bank bandits burying their loot in a churchyard ?"

She marched off to the house without another word of comment or argument. I sighed, returning to my work on the Loot Locator. She always loses. What stings, is, she refuses to realize it.

A week later I stopped walking along the pale sand to rest, momentarily letting the Locator lay at my feet. Mopping my sweating brow, I gave some dismally realistic thought to what the Locator had located in the past two days. Exactly 176 soda pop cans, 816 beer cans, 11 car bodies, 26 stoves and a couple of refrigerators-all of them in advanced stages of rusty disintegration. Regarding the compact trench-spade with distaste, I glanced at the beachcombing couple nearby, diligently peering at the sand as they strolled along the water's edge.

The sound of a car behind me diverted my attention. It was Friend Wife. Bringing me coffee and cruel amusement as usual. Having trailed me into this folly, she wasn't about to keep her distance and allow me to fail graciously. No, she wanted to be there for the kill-that moment of truth when I admitted I was finding nothing resembling pirate loot, and possibly even confessing that my Locator was a proven flop. I suspected she would settle for nothing less than the joy of hearing me voice my laboriously developed suspicions that no freebooters had ever stepped ashore here, either.

"How's it going, treasure hunter?" she jeered, handing hot coffee to me. "Need any help getting the troves of swag back to the house ?"

"Uh . . . well, I'm working my way through quite a bit of trash that must be gotten past in order to reach the lower levels of deposit where anciently placed items-such as doubloons, pieces of eight and chests brimming with loot-were originally buried," I stalled lamely, trying for a nicely detached expression. "I expect to stumble upon a treasure cache anytime now."

"Hogwash!"

"How can you say that?"

"It's easy. Hogwash!"

Suddenly, in staring mutely at my feet, my eyes swept past the Locator, tilted so the search plate was partially exposed - and I saw a large, gleaming ring clinging to the magnetic plate. Swiftly I bent and picked it up, holding it before her face.

"Wh-What's that?" she stammered. "Just a little piece of hogwash, dear! Just a small sample of what the magnificent Kohler Loot Locator is doing while the world snickers and smirks." I polished the ring on my damp shirt. Made of thick gold, it was studded with diamonds glittering in the sunlight. Visions of wealth beyond mine or the IRS's wildest dreams romped briefly through my head. I trembled with excitement, spilling hot coffee all over myself. "Now are you convinced that -"

"Podden me, buddy," said a booming voice just behind my right shoulder, "but that's my wife's ring you got there?"

I turned. He was King Kong in Bermuda shorts and a gaudy shirt splashed with tropical fish on a background of garish crimson. The same guy I'd seen studying the water's edge a few moments earlier. He also looked tough enough to chew nails without his store-teeth and spit out their heads without bruising his gums. I smiled intensely up at him.

"Y-Your wife's r-ring, sir?" I chirped.

"Yeah, dat's right! She losted it out here a coupla days ago. We been looking fer it ever since, see ?" He plucked the gem-encrusted ring from my fingers just as deftly as I could have taken candy from a baby. Now I knew how babies feel when somebody puts the snatch on their goodies. "Sure was nice of you to find it for us!"

"M-My pleasure," I lied manfully.

"Don't suppose you'd take a modest reward for finding a ring that means quite a bunch to my little woman, would'ja, buddy?"

"Of course not!" Mouthy chimed nobly from the car. "My husband wouldn't dream of accepting money for having accidentally found your wife's lovely piece of jewelry!"

For a tenth of a second I think I understood why some husbands are entirely capable of sending their wives to a better world slightly ahead of divine schedule. I nodded, my face probably a mixture of emotions-greed-disappointment-false cheer-anguish. The works, simultaneously.

"N -No reward, th-thanks," I croaked.

"Hey, that's a purty tricky little chunka stuff you got there!" King Kong squatted, running a hairy hand admiringly over the Locator. "Does it work?"

"Does a chicken have lips?" I said bitterly.

"Huh?"

"It found your wife's ring, didn't it?"

"Hey, yeah! Dat's right, it did!" He pondered the truth of this fact for a few seconds. Then, rising to his full eight feet of towering flab once more, he jerked a beefy thumb at the Locator. "I wanny buy it, buddy. How much ya want fer it?"

I hesitated, waiting for Mouthy to assure this character that I was also morally above business transactions but she remained silent. He misinterpreted by pause.

"Bet ya made the thingie yourself, huh ?"

"Right!" I bit the word out, holding my chin high.

He named a sum that would comfortably purchase a Heathkit Color TV, a middling heap of Hewlett-Packard test equipment and still leave enough to take a mouthy wife to dinner at the best restaurant. Furthermore, he reeled it over in cash and I took it like a man getting rich in a dream.

"You sure this thingie works good?" he asked, turning to leave."We lose a lotta stuff in the sand, going around the world and seeing all them beaches, ya know!"

My fist tightened about the sheaf of bills it held. There're only two things I love better than electronics. One of them was keeping her yap shut. I was holding the other.

"That precision handcrafted instrument you just bought, sir," I assured him in a confident tone common to solvent men, "is so sensitive that it'll detect a germ with iron-rich blood!"

He departed, happy.

I got into the car, counting the bills with a reverence bordering on an ill-concealed mania. "Did that little old Locator ever find the loot or did it ever find the loot?" I babbled. "I no longer hear you chuckling with glee, kid."

"Y-you pirate!" she accused.

"The gentleman set the price."

"Talk about piracy!"

"Listen, sister," I said tartly. "Have you ever heard of pioneering?"

"Sure I have. Why?"

"Well, what you've just witnessed was a tidy example of another somewhat romantic endeavor along the same line as pioneering."

"What's that?"

"Buck-aneering, baby!" And this time I dissolved into merry laughter.

Posted August 8, 2024