Sunday, December 10, 2006

Radiation Detectors

From Chip, N5RTF:

Enjoyed the talk this morning on radioisotopes. As a sideline, I enjoy building geiger counters and usually have a couple quietly clicking away at home. They are sometimes illuminating. I was once able to detect a leak from a local nuclear plant 2 days before it was announced publicly. It is also interesting to observe counts go up when it starts raining.

If any MARCO members would like to build their own counters, I recommend Charles Wenzel's web site:

http://www.techlib.com/science/geiger.html
Tubes can be purchased from LND incorporated at: http://www.lndinc.com/

His circuits are impressive, in that they can be built mostly out of a junk box and draw only about 1 ma. in operation. Output from the detector can be modified to drive any number of devices: lights, speakers, digital counters, software, etc.

Be the first in your neighborhood to know you've been nuked!

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