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I shifted some boxes an hour ago, they had stuff from the house I moved from a couple of years ago. As I carried one of them past the Geiger counter on the wall outside my bedroom there was a flurry of clicks. Much puzzled, I put the box down and took items out one at a time and held each one close. Eventually the Geiger counter screamed, flashed red, the count went up from the background 20 counts a minute to over 3,000.

It's the radium paint on a 1943 Mk III prismatic compass. There's nothing from the similar M-73 by which stage radium paint was out of fashion.

It just goes to show. I had no idea it was there, I've had the compass nearly forty years and used it often enough back then on the hills, I bought it from a surplus shop round the back of Euston Station.

On the up side, the markings do still glow in the dark.

I'll avoid licking the compass.

You have a Geiger counter on your wall ?



You knew it would come in handy........and it has.

I rather hope the eventuality I installed it for will never occur, but I'd hate to be in that position without one.

Besides, this is Cornwall. I can check for Radon if I get asked.

Where do you keep your foil helmet ?

Nobody is transmitting thoughts directly into my brain or reeding my mind. What aspect of having a Geiger counter relates to foil helmets?

Paranoia ?

Just trying to imagine the scenario when I might feel the need to have one at hand..................nope......beats me.

Reactor leaks? Uncontrolled spacecraft re-entry? Terrorist conventional explosions salted with radioactive debris? Neither is paranoid, the first has left radioactive clouds drifting across the UK several times and the third is pretty likely. Someone using a nuclear warhead in the next ten years is pretty likely too but I don't insist on that part.

OK any of those events occur tomorrow, how does the Geiger counter help ?

I had similar concerns after picking up a spectroscopic ellipsometer from the Sunday boot fair.

I was having concerns about the refractive index of my landing light and the apparent misalignment of its electromagnetic waves.

I'm not sure it's working like it should so I'm taking it back.

Snowfire;1494889 wrote: I had similar concerns after picking up a spectroscopic ellipsometer from the Sunday boot fair.

I was having concerns about the refractive index of my landing light and the apparent misalignment of its electromagnetic waves.

I'm not sure it's working like it should so I'm taking it back.


Should I Google any of that ? Or are you teasing ?

Bruv;1494890 wrote: Should I Google any of that ? Or are you teasing ?


I havent a clue what one of those does in real life. I'm just sure I'll never need one

The thing about radioactivity is that you can't smell, taste or see it. In particulate form you can't tell whether you've washed it off your boots, clothes or skin. Airborne, you can't tell whether you've adequately sealed a room. With a Geiger counter you can achieve all those things quite simply.

If you manage to stay relatively clean for a fortnight you can survive most of the eventualities I mentioned. So long as you can test what's there, you can protect your environment for that critical period.

None of that's paranoia, it's just how the topic works.

Snowfire;1494889 wrote: I had similar concerns after picking up a spectroscopic ellipsometer from the Sunday boot fair.If you found that in working order for under £1,000 then you got a bargain.

Well Cornwall is particularly radioactive with all that granite.

Ive no idea whether it's true but I have read that bananas are radio active to some degree. Though that could have been late, tired reading on a Friday evening

Snowfire;1494893 wrote: Well Cornwall is particularly radioactive with all that granite.Just holding the counter to the church wall here puts the background up from 20 to 40.

Ive no idea whether it's true but I have read that bananas are radio active to some degree. Though that could have been late, tired reading on a Friday evening


All foods have Potassium, bananas slightly more so. Potassium is extraordinarily minimally radioactive. What you eat displaces the same amount of Potassium out as waste, you can't accumulate it, and that you already have is radioactive to the same degree. I'd have thought your exposure to Carbon, also minimally radioactive, is a bigger background source.

Should I think of stockpiling bananas..............just in case ?

I understand Brazil Nuts are especially Radio Active.

FourPart;1494914 wrote: I understand Brazil Nuts are especially Radio Active.


It rather depends on where they were grown...

http://atomicinsights.com/bbc-bang-goes ... azil-nuts/