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http://www.radiationnetwork.com/ (scroll down for details on Geiger counter model numbers)

You ought to participate here
http://enenews.com/
(wtf seems down at the moment??)

I used a CDV-700
(with the DU sample on the side)
http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/cdmuseum2/radkits/cdv700.html
Then I soldered together one of these.
Dollar Store Digital Geiger Counter Hack
http://www.pskl.us/wp/?p=289
Then pick a spot and do 10 minute tests.

The drawback is I wasn't measuring the "floor" before 3.11 so I have no low floor to compare against, but the best I can tell it's trending down currently, and if anything I am building my own floor.

I now have been measuring the floor long enough that I can tell which way the overall situation is trending. I started in the 850's June and it's currently down in the 550's October, we most assuredly got dusted by something.

Things I learned from all this?

I will never be able to detect hot particles with this equipment.

Stay away from the RAIN, as it brings the shit down out of the sky onto the ground, just like a water truck keeps a dusty road muddy and dust free.

If you have a whole house air filter which was installed before 3-11 I highly suggest you change it, when I tested mine it was literally a hot object, and let me just say that was an eye opener.

There's also some software that you could use if you can't find the dollar store pedometer parts. also, most pedometer's are similar so if you know electronics, it's a simple matter to modify from pedometer to pedometer.

There are a few others out there now helping people with analog meters.
http://www.imagesco.com/geiger/geiger-counter-accessories.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ustream-your-Geiger-Counter/step2/Free-Counter-Software/

Some other CDV-700 mods
http://home.comcast.net/~prutchi/index_files/cdv700pro.htm

Free Counter / Scaler Software
David Honigâ(TM)s free âoeCDV Counterâ program
http://www.anythingradioactive.com/CDVCounter/help.html (wtf 404 for the software, no problem use the guide there and download from our ham radio friends who wisely have us covered. http://www.qsl.net/k/k0ff/CDVCOUNTERZIP/CDVcounter-zip/

There are some charging money for counting software, I don't know about these, they look legit, I guess it comes down to your own abilities and what you want.
http://www.geigercounters.com/Software.htm
http://www.blackcatsystems.com/GM/page3.html

Opinion: If I lived in Japan, I would have sold everything and done anything to leave months ago.

Hopefully someone will mod this up so you (and others) don't miss the information.

"Am-241 sources do emit some low-energy gamma too, which goes right through the metal can. Not a health concern, but sufficient to stimulate a functioning geiger counter."

This guy had a couple of pretty decent counters and didn't detect any.

Total unmitigated disaster.

I'd tend to say that there were quite a few mitigating factors, for example, the fact that nobody got killed by it.

Should we judge the safety of today's cars on the basis of crash tests using a Model-T?

We learned from that fiasco and fixed the problems.

And it was not a "small controlled release". The original overflows into the auxiliary buildings was uncontrolled and could be measured at 15 times above background level many miles away.

15 times above background level is something like the dosage you'd get from an airplane flight, isn't it? I think we'd need to find out what definition of 'background' they were using.

Hmmm...
Cosmic: 50 MREM
Terrestrial: 200
Food: 20
Self: 40(carbon-14)
Plane flight - .5MREM/hour

Call it 400 mrem. '15X', for a limited period of time, say, 2 weeks? 230MREM, and Upper GI Xray, half a barium enema.
Chance of cancer goes up 10% if you get 250k MREM, you'd need 3k/year.

Now look at the deaths from coal mining, coal power, coal pollution. How many lives would have been saved if we had built enough nuclear plants(post TMI designs) that instead of our electricity being 20% nuclear, 60% coal, it was 20% coal, 60% nuclear?

If you eat Potassium Chloride, you get nutrition. If you inject it, you die.

Either way, you get radioactive.

Or by using radiation (If I remember high school science): http://www.blackcatsystems.com/GM/random.html

Read up on the early history of Radio. It used to be free to broadcast. Now it's really expensive. Soon the only web pages and mailing activities will be those that are sanctioned by the key masters.

No, it's cheap to radio broadcast, Pirate radio stations do it all the tyme. There's even pirate radio on the internet. What's espensive is getting a license to broadcast. And that's just how the mass media wants it. Clear Channel doesn't want more competition, it wants less.

And unless I'm missing something, I can think of no obvious scientific reason to attribute Gulf War Syndrome with U-238. It smells very much like public paranoia and mis-information: Uranium 238 is depleted Uranium: it is not fissile, and it's half-life is near 5 billion years. It is rather abundant in bricks---which is why most building have a higher ambient radiation than the outdoors (even though the buildings shield some cosmic rays, they usually have enough Uranium in the bricks to compensate).

That the level of radiation is of absolutely no concern whatsoever, and calling it one of the 'most dangerous toys of all time' is spreading public mis-information.

Great, they are always looking to test products out on people, and as a bonus if you survive you get to keep the product.

On a more serious note, these people (protestors) are just pointing out that there hasn't been enough research done to make sure that the long term effects of the new coatings don't cause long term problems for people. Obviously what those protestors did worked, because we are now talking about it.

Example Asbestos, I could make you some pants that are fire retardant, 50 years ago this would sound great. Today we know the problems associated with Asbestos.

Anyway the list is long of great ideas that turned out deadly. The best one is X-Ray's. They used to use this for everything. Need to find out if that shoe fits. Let's X-Ray your foot in the shoe, or put it in cosmetics. At the start everything seemed good, until everyone started to die, including Marie Currie who died in 1934 from leukemia.

Radium was used to make the watch hands glow. Great idea except it caused radiation poisoning.

More radioactive products that seemed good at the time and some we still use: http://www.blackcatsystems.com/science/radprod.htm l

Anyway, the list is endless, and not just with radiation either, many other ideas through time that have left a lasting effect on us today. (DDT)

And who knows you may even earn yourself a Darwin Award along the way. http://www.darwinawards.com/

Simply hook the audio-in on your computer to an FM receiver. If you have a good quality FM receiver and antenna, you can get very good recordings.

I used to use Audiocorder with OSX. This is a great program, and affordable. As for time-shifting, you should be able to start playing an AIFF or WAV before you're done recording.

Now that I'm on Linux, though, I just use a cron job and arecord, which I think comes with the ALSA drivers; it just takes a little bit more work than Audiocorder to get the levels right.

The nice thing about Linux/OSX, is that you can schedule these things to start encoding into MP3 when you're done recording. I used to use this process to record and encode my radio show, and it was done before I got back home. All I had to do was transfer it to my iPod. I also used this to record NPR's Morning Edition, but now that I have to leave for work before the show starts, there's no real point anymore...

Anyhow, HTH. -d

Polonium was also used on spark plugs for a while during the "atomic age". Neat idea, ionizing radiation lets you set the electrodes further apart. Found a picture of them here.

Sounds plausible, but I'm not sure how well they'd work, nor am I sure how much polonium would end up reacting chemically during combustion and leaving the tailpipe as a dangerous radioactive compound, but I've seen them before and thought they were amusing.

Better watch out or every homey with a V-Tec sticker on his Honda Civic will be trying to screw 1940s spark plugs into his head so he can have a "nuclear-powered" 4-cylinder wanna-be racecar.

Heheh.

Radioactive Products and Other Sources Of Radiation
Amateur Radiation Detection and Experimentation Page

Radioactive Products and Other Sources Of Radiation
Amateur Radiation Detection and Experimentation Page