Radiological instruments at the MOSI

I've visited my friend in Sheffield, UK last weekend. We also took a day trip to check out Manchester. How cold two engineers kill a rainy afternoon? By going into the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) of course. The museum itself has a pretty interesting collection - at least interesting in any technically/scientifically wired brain:)

Unfortunately we only had a couple of hours to fly through the exhibitions. I could recommend a visit there, you could spend a day around all the exciting stuff. We stumbled into a small collection of radiological instruments - mostly from the 70's and 80's. I will post some of them, along with a short description. So here we go:The one above is my favourite - the big sphere is actually part of the instrument. This is a neutron meter, used to measure the number of neutrons around a reactor or a plutonium store. It was used from the late 60's to the late 70's...This one above is a vintage beta and gamma dose rate meter from the seventies. Used to measure radiation dose rate in the field or at the workplace.
This is a more interesting one. The one in the middle is a portable air sampler, from the late 60's. The filter paper on the front was removed regularly. It was examined for alpha, beta radiaton and assessed later. Could be used for Iodine 131 monitoring as well.Here we go onto the more exotic fast neutron meter. This early 60's instrument was used around a nuclear reactor.This one above is just a regular gamma dose rate meter from the 70's.And a background radiation monitor, used around nuclear waste in the 70's. It has its readings in counts per second: CPM. I like the cool "gun shaped" design. I wonder wheter it is meant to give readings from a distance...
Here we go onto some film badges. Were worn by workers in the nuclear industry, have been largely replaced by digital, reusable equivalents. The films became more darker as they gathered radiation - this way the dose could be estimated. The one on the right (blue) is actually sensitive to slow neutrons too!
That's all, hope you enjoyed our little tour to "retro" equipment - sorry for the bad quality photos. It was really dark in the whole museum, and this exhibition was no exception...

The Rock in My Room

I used to collect minerals and cool rocks as a kid. All the different sizes, colors and shapes have fascinated me, and they still do. Yes, I know - I always nurtured this inner nerd-slash-scientist in me, it was just a matter of when not the if to come to surface. The organized chaos is something hard to descirbe. You cannot be sure that something really is random, yet see the beauty in it.

The collection never grew to a large proportions, most of the pieces wait in cardboard boxes for their fate. Some of the bigger, crystallized minerals are still in my room. Objects which remind me off all the weird hobbies I've taken on and abandoned eventually.

I had an idea today. Let's test if any of the rocks has detectable radioactivity over the background radiation. Oh yes. It's good to have all those expensive and exotic measuring devices in a common household. Of course it is quite ironic not to find a measuring tape in your home, but to have a frequency counter, radio scanner and a dosimeter within an arm's reach...

So anyways - I've found out that I kept a rock with four times the normal background radiation in my rooms. The close reading (beta plus gamma radiation) gives around 0.47 uSv... (where u=micro) Hey, I would not really want to keep that under my pillow.

Radioactive rock? Anyone? Check out the very short video. The beeping is coming from the dosimeter, of course safety standards would be badly crossed with that kind of long time exposure:

Unpacking the TERRA-P

The ECOTEST TERRA-P dosimeter finally arrived - fortunately unharmed by the journey. As you can see from the picture, the original package is very small - even compared to a pen. I was expecting the device to be relatively tiny, but in reality is even smaller than I imagined. It's like thick cellphone.The box contained the device itself, with batteries already installed. The batteries should actually last around 6000h in sleep mode and with normal radiation, but are user changeable. In addition to the device itself there is a detailed user's manual (in English:) and a colorful "Quick start" guide included by default. The manual shows the serial number of the dosimeter, quality check and calibration protocol and the warranty.
Somehow I did not expect such a nicely marketed product. I guess this is a common prejudice against post-communist countries. I have to tell that both the customer support and the product itself is flawless.
As soon as I took the device out of its plastic cradle, I managed to drop it on the floor. It is not a good idea to drop anything with a Geiger tube on the floor - since the component is pretty fragile Fortunately it survived the fall. I shall add that to the positive side of its properties;) And here is the dosimeter itself with the dose rate measurement taking place. Fortunately I have not found anything radioactive around me - and that's a good thing. :) The background radiation in my house is around 0.1microSv/h. Shows some slight variation, but that's due to the measurement precision. This is at the lower end of the background radiation still considered to be normal. I have no idea what is the actual long term exposure limit in my country, but supposedly in the Ukraine that is 0.3microSv/h. The device makes a "click" sound at each count, just as you would expect from a Geiger counter.
The back of the device has a second hinged door. It is hard to open, I'm kinda worried that it may break after a time. Anyways, under this door is the Geiger tube itself. The door has a thin lead lining, which blocks out Beta radiation. If one wants to measure Gamma radiation, leaves the door on. If you want to measure Gamma + Beta exposure you open the hatch. Logically the difference of the two measurements gives just the Beta radiation.
Well that's about it for now. These are the first impressions, I will write a review with more details as soon as I have the chance to play around with the device. I took some video footage too, will edit it into a usable form soon.

The package

It took exactly ten days to get my dosimeter from the Ukraine to Slovakia. The parcel arrived in good condition. I'd like to thank Oxana from ECOTEST for the very careful wrapping. This way the TERRA-P survived the journey, and I also got some bubble wrap to play with:)

Anyways, more pictures to come soon. Right now I'm to lazy to do that. So I will post the pics and some first impressions very soon. And no, I did not find anything radioactive in my house. At least nothing over the background. That's a good thing. ;)

Aaaand, we're back...

By that I mean, I'm back to Slovakia from Oxford - now I will have more time to deal with our little brain-child. It would be a shame to abandon this blog, wouldn't it?

Anyways, one of the reasons why there was no post lately was the lack of actual developments regarding the Chernobyl trip. Up to a couple of days ago.

About a month ago I made contact with a very nice lady from Ekotect, and agreed on the price and conditions of sale of a dose/dose rate meter. I told her, that I will have time to actually sort out the payment in december. Well, she did not forget about it either - so contacted me before I had a chance to do the same. Riht now we are negotiating the details, so the whole Chernobyl project is back on tracks again - assured by my travelling / blogging companion Danex as well.

Geiger-Mueller counter

My Geiger-Mueller counter just arrived. Unfortunately i am not at home at the moment, so i cant play and fiddle with it as i wish, but still i managed to get a few pics - kudoz to me mom! She said its really yellow and looks like a radio ;-). Enjoy!

Customer service

I've done a little research on my own regarding the Geiger counters. I would like to have one, unless it costs an arm and a leg. So I've started to dig up some sites, have a look at e-bay and I've found one device, called Terra-P from an Ukrainian manufacturer. (Will write about the device itself some other time.) It is small, portable and not too expensive. Maybe it is not an "object of desire" like danex's Victoreen, but it might be more useful and somewhat accurate. Although I will miss the retro look:)

So I've contacted the manufacturer "Ekotect" and received a fast reply from a very nice and helpful lady, called Oxana - supposedly their sales department manager. The price of the device is acceptable, although I found the shipping price somewhat high. After I asked if it would be possible to find another ways delivery, Oxana contacted me through ICQ right away and offered me several different options. After we agreed on one, she even reserved one device for me...
That's what I take as excellent and personal customer service. I was very pleased with that. It's extremely annoying when you want to contact a company, and have to follow through endless automated forms / phone-bots and the like to actually be able to communicate with a human.
I will most probably make an order when I get home from Oxford, and will tell more about the device itself.

Impulse buyer's guide

So I've talked to danex about going to Chernobyl, about a week ago. This was not the first time, but we have not been so serious about it before. I asked him yesterday, wether he wants to come with me. He said something like: "Hell yeah I want!" So that settled, we continued on chatting.

Not more than five minutes have elapsed, and he already bought a Geiger counter on e-bay. Not any counter, but a real cold-war era relic: a civil defense dose-rate meter.

So congrats to him, I'm really curious of his new toy. Although this device (at least according to the seller) is in perfect working condition, it is not calibrated. But it looks insanely cool with all its "retro mojo", and it makes the clicking / chirping sound. The one you'd expect from a Geiger counter. Isn't all that we need?:)He chose (after 2 minutes of careful research) a Victoreen CDV 700 6b, which is a true counter for fairly low level beta and gamma radiation. Although this is just what we need on our trip, in a real nuclear event - this type of device would give a false reading. At extreme high levels of radiation, the Geiger tube tends to saturate and give a low figure. This is exactly what happened in Chernobyl, after the incident occurred. They've sent out a guy, who came back with the information that the levels are safe. For such cases a so called survey meter is needed, which can measure radiation from 1-500rad (up to 5Sv)... These are enormously high levels, 500rad would certainly kill anyone in an hour.

You can read more about the civil defense Geiger counters on Wikipedia, or you may also check out e-bay. More on the Victoreen CD survey meters on "Civil Defense Museum" (excellent site, you can even see the original manual scanned) and there is a schematics page as well.
Hopefully when danex gets his CDV-700, he will write an extensive review for us.