• Country
• Japan

• Manufacturer / Brand
• Sony Corporation; Tokyo

• Year
• 1958

• Category
• Broadcast Receiver - or past WW2 Tuner

• Radiomuseum.org ID
• 103587

Click on the schematic thumbnail to request the schematic as a free document.

• Number of Transistors
• 15

• Semiconductors
• 2T201 2T201 2T201 2T201 2T201 2T203 2T203 2T203 2T65 2T65 2T65 2T76 2T76 2T85 2T85 1T23 1T23 1T23 1T23 1T51

• Main principle
• Superheterodyne (common); ZF/IF 455/10700 kHz; 3 AF stage(s)

• Tuned circuits
• 5 AM circuit(s)     9 FM circuit(s)

• Wave bands
• Broadcast (BC) and FM or UHF.

• Power type and voltage
• Dry Batteries / D: 4 x 1.5 Volt

• Loudspeaker
• Permanent Magnet Dynamic (PDyn) Loudspeaker (moving coil) - elliptical

• Material
• Plastics (no bakelite or catalin)

• from Radiomuseum.org
• Model: FM/AM Fifteen Transistor TFM-151 - Sony Corporation; Tokyo

• Shape
• Portable set > 8 inch (also usable without mains)

• Dimensions (WHD)
• 232 x 193 x 78 mm / 9.1 x 7.6 x 3.1 inch

• Notes

• Sony TFM-151 is Sony's first AM/FM full transistor radio and has been built only in a quantity of (well) over thousand pieces. 8 transistors plus 4 diodes and a varistor were used for FM and the set reads "FM/AM Fifteen Transistor", not AM/FM, emphasing the new possibility, FM with transistors. Sony exhibited the TFM-151 at the 7th annual Audio Fair in Tokyo in October 1958 and then released it for sale as an export-only model the following month. Most probably that meant USA only. We have some text that suggests that Südfunk in Germany was also building an AM-FM-Superhet as full transistor radio and we are in the process of checking the dates. The problem in 1958 was to have transistors which work on this (then) high frequency. The TFM-151 has an oval speaker of 4" x 6" like TR-74 and TR-741. The FM band is from 88 to 108 mc.
  
  If you have a Sony TFM-151 then you have to take care of it because the plastic is not strong enough to support the weight of the radio and during the years went into a stage where it tends to break very easily. The chassis was marked 010-6 and was revised to the 010-6A version by the time production reached serial number 1439.

  In FM mode, an additional af preamplifier after the FM detector (discriminator) is used.

• Price in first year of sale
• 149.00 $

• Mentioned in
• Wireless World (The), London (WW, 79) (Vol. 65, April 1959, page 192)

• Literature/Schematics (1)
• Photofact Folder, Howard W. SAMS (Set 483 Folder 15 5-1960)

• Author
• Model page created by a member from A. See "Data change" for further contributors.

• Other Models

• Here you find 3989 models, 3849 with images and 956 with schematics for wireless sets etc. In French: TSF for Télégraphie sans fil.
  All listed radios etc. from Sony Corporation; Tokyo