Part15

License Free, legal, low-power radio broadcasting

Sony Prison Radio

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Here’s another tidbit I just read about on Arcane Radio Trivia.. Evidently prison inmates have portable radios with excellent selectivity that are different than the ones we in the general public can get.. The Sony SRF-39FP radio.. it’s a varient of the Sony SRF-39. The big difference is that FP models (stands for Federal Prison) are transparent so the inmates can’t hide any thing inside them.

A “Sony spokesperson confirmed.. that selling portable radios in American prisons has long been a “stable business” that represents “sizable” sales for the company. Of the models available, the SRF-39FP remains an undisputed classic,..”

You can read his blog about this radio here: http://tenwatts.blogspot.com/2014/03/srf-39fp.html#links

(for some reason you have to scroll up to read his blog after clicking the link)

You can read another article about it in The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-ipod-of-prison-sony-radio.html?currentPage=all

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Comments

  1. Very Nice Radio

    I like the transparent radio very much.

    My plans include seeking a grant to operate a private womans prison, and by all means we’ll have one of those Sony’s for every cell.

    How about a transparent part 15 transmitter?

    I think I’ll give my inmates each a transmitter and microphone, with frequency sharing rules that will help with rehabilitation.

    I’ll be sitting in my wardon’s office listening to their broadcasts.

  2. The Sony SRF-39FP Is Famous In The AM DX World

    …Along with the SRF-59, SRF-49, SRF-39, and lots of other cool

    little radios that use that 55 kHz IFs or something else like it. 

    5 or 10 or 15 years ago(?), some AM DX dude got tired of his Drake R-8B

    and 1/2 mile long beverage antenna.  He walked outside and found

    a Sony SRF-39 in the drugstore near his house.  It worked really really

    well.  Then he told another guy, and another and another.  Then some

    dude living near the Pacific Ocean took out an SRF-39 and tuned around
    one night.  He heard split frequency stations from Japan. 

    Then everything broke loose like wildfire.  (I’m paraphrasing this of course.)

    Amazing inexpensive radios from Sony and other companies spread through

    the AM DX community and the ULTRALIGHT radio hobby began. 

    These radios became really popular overnight. 

    One guy liked his SRF-59 so much, that he put it into a

    box and made a operating shack TABLE AM DX receiver!

    (I would love to see that.)

    Some of these radios contained a really great radio chip

    made in Silicon Valley.  A bunch of these receivers went

    off to China for it’s big domestic radio market.  Some American

    DX guys bought these radios directly from China.  They found it

    was hard to read Chinese writing next to the operating controls,

    but they figured it out and used the radios anyway. 

    Then many of these radios became available on the U.S. market

    through other companies. 

    I have a few radios that fit into the ultralight category, but

    no radio gets as much attention as the SRF-39FP and it’s

    cousins, especially the SRF-59.

    It is recommended, though, that these radios are used with

    external AM DX loops, which of course are easy to buy or build.

    The SRF-59 costs only about 10 or 20 dollars, depending where

    you get it.  What a deal!

    Bruce, DOGRADIO

  3. Great Stuff!

    Wow!  Thanks for that R_QRP!

    I have a facination with minimalist

    radio.  Lately it’s been regens and

    crystal sets about 80 percent of the

    time.

    Best Wishes,

    Bruce, DOGRADIO