☢ The Radioactive Chat ☢: Survival Equipment

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Showing posts with label Survival Equipment. Show all posts

Thursday, August 8, 2013

☢ Homemade Geiger Counter For Under $10 ☢

Hello everyone,

With all this "recent talk" about Fukshima leaking 400 tons of radioactive plutonium water into the Pacific Ocean every day (experts say it has most likely been going on for 2 years already) the safety for ourselves and our loved ones are on many peoples minds. The one thing that enables you to see the dangersous presence of radiation is with the well known Geiger Counter.

Homemade Geiger Counter

However not many people today can afford to get one because they do cost a bit. I remember that right after the Fukushima disaster most stocks of radiation meters where emptied so back then you could not even get one even if you had the money.

Well fortunetly you can make your very own homemade Geiger Counter for under $10. And if you already happen to have a simple volt meter you probably wont need more than a few bucks and some time to make one yourself.

MrTeslonian on Youtube recently made a very good video explaining and showing you exactly what you need to do. Some thin copper wire, small piece of aluminium pipe, aluminium foil (you could probably make due with just aluminium foil and not even have to use a pipe) and a volt meter set to AC Current and you are done. The great thing is that this simple homemade Geiger Counter will work for almost any form of radiation.

I am certainly going to give this a try, because it's a simple design, you don't need a lot of time and most likely have all parts avaliable around the house. It's proven and tested and shows that it works. If another disaster where to happen I strongly urge everyone that is anywhere near any sort of nuclear power plant to at least learn how to put one of these things together if you don't already have or know someone that owns an Geiger Counter.

Geiger Counters - Radiation Detection Meters - Handheld Radiation Detector

When it comes to radiation detection meters you really have a wide field of gadgets to choose from, however radiation detectors are the most common to use. First of all if you need to know what type of radiation you are looking for. There are Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation detectors. And also there is neutron emission of nuclear radiation. And all these different types of emissions have radiation detectors for a specific type of radiation that you can buy radiation detector for. Some also measure both Alpha and Beta. Others detect Alpha, Beta and Gamma. While others let you measure Beta and Gamma radiation.

What most people have use for though are Dosimeters you can buy a handheld radiation detector pretty cheap that are good addition to a survival kit. There are different kinds that you can use that will detect radiation. There are radiation badges that will tell you when radiation become high. Workers at nuclear power plants use these to inform them of how much radiation they have been exposed to. Now also children in the Fukushima prefecture have each been given a radiation badge so they know if they are exposed to radiation. Some come in the shape of a pen that you can carry in your pocket while other are made more compact so that you can attach them to your keychain. And then you have what is called a personal radiation monitor. These are also called Dosimeters and also normally called Geiger counters. Although not all use the Geiger-Muller Tube for the radiation detection some use a semiconductor instead. These and mostly the older geiger counters seen are pretty big to carry around, so they might not be best suited for a survival situation where you only need to carry the most important things. However if you have land and want to check radiation around the property and drinking water then these are the geiger counters to get because they are very well built units.

These are the once that you normally see people use. They have different units of radiation detection, because when it comes to radiation there are many standards used. some give the measurements in Rads, while other use Sieverts. Some have the maximum radiation value for the measured radioactivity quite low but they will still give you an idea of the amount of radiation in the area. With the units ranging from between background radiation 0.001 mSv/hr all the way up to 10 Sv/h. Normally a dosimeter will measure radiation in micro siverts per hour. If you were to walk into one of the reactor units at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant you probably would get an error reading from your dosimeter because the radiation levels are so high there.

Note that some places outside the exclusion zone in Fukushima that are too radioactive for people to live in have areas where the radiation levels are above 30 Sv/h. So if you are in a area that have high radiation the radiation detectors would also there go off the scale. However Geiger counters or radiation detectors are still favored as general purpose alpha/beta/gamma portable radiation detectors and radiation detection equipment, due to their low cost and robustness. Most come with an LCD Display that show you the radioactivity in the area. Nowdays you will even get alarm sound and the possibility to connect the device to a computer. Either with a Infrared, Bluetooth or USB connection.

So if you look at the radiation detectors for sale that have this, then these radiation detection meters will allow you to make maps of contaminated areas that show where the radiation is high and low. This also will help you to see which areas are becoming more contaminated over time. With several nuclear reactors in the US and around the world located near fault zones that makes it a danger if a big earthquake would hit the area there is always a good choice to have a radiation dosimeter avaliable. I'm sure many in Fukushima would have been grateful to have dosimeters avaliable at the time of the disaster and I am sure you to would be grateful to have a geiger counter handy when you need one.

☢ The Radioactive Chat ☢

Thursday, August 8, 2013

☢ Homemade Geiger Counter For Under $10 ☢

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Pacific Ocean - Radiation