

Guerrilla Radio - jgrahamc
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/26/guerilla-radio

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fnordfnordfnord
I was a TDCJ officer for a couple of years (almost twenty years ago), and I am
not a bit surprised to learn that some inmates have reconfigured their radios
to transmit. I never saw a transmitter, but I did find a number of tattoo guns
which were usually manufactured from the impedance matching transformers that
were used to get radio reception inside the units. There are some very
inventive people incarcerated and they obviously had a lot of time on their
hands. The bit about the guards being clueless is largely true as well. Even
though the radios were in a translucent housing so that they could not be used
to conceal contraband, most officers were not trained or otherwise able to
identify a radio that had been modified, especially if carefully done.
Officers were instructed to confiscate any radio that was modified, but this
policy was often ignored. Supervising inmate housing is one of the least
desirable assignments. It's also often the case that if a housing unit isn't
causing too much trouble that enforcement might be relaxed as it can be more
disruptive than just letting some of it go. The design of many Texas prisons
requires officers to walk down a long corridor ~24 to 34 cells per tier,
allowing ample time for inmates at the ends to stow contraband.

A point of trivia here that isn't related to making AM transmitters but still
interesting is that the type of radios that were really coveted by inmates
were the ones that had a particular Sony PLL IC, I can't recall the part
number but it is fairly famous for being a very good receiver with high
sensitivity.

~~~
kqr2
[http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-ipod-of-
prison](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-ipod-of-prison)

The Sony SRF-39FP is the "ipod of prison". It has good reception and runs on a
single AA battery for 40 hours.

