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From: gnome@oliveb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.analog,net.consumers,net.med
Subject: Old Geiger counters
Message-ID: <822@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-May-86 16:37:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.822
Posted: Fri May  2 16:37:02 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 4-May-86 06:26:50 EDT
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Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
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"Where's Chernobyl?  Well, make a left at that cloud and
follow the glow..."

A friend of mine and I were talking about radiation
and Geiger counters one day at lunch when he mentioned
that he had an old, grey military radiation meter.
He got it surplus a long time ago and never got it
running because it uses two very strange batteries.
Anyway, he brought it into work the next day and I brought
in the unit that I use for detecting Radon gas under
houses.  We were comparing the relative sizes of the two units
when I noticed that the background count (cosmic rays, whatever)
had almost doubled.  Being suspicious, I thought "maybe this
unit (the military meter) had been used in a army weapons test
and was contaminated!".  Well, after probing around, I found that
the meter face and especially the meter needle-tip was coated
in radioactive glow-goo that ran my meter to 80% full scale!

I have a hard time understanding why a Geiger counter manufacturer
would paint the meter with radio-active paint!  Oh well.  I guess
that the military meter was so insensitive that any output from the
glow-goo was ignored by the unit.  The meter's scale was divided
into three segments "safe to travel", "limited exposure", and "take
cover..."

If you have one of these, put it out in the garage, Radon gas is no fun!


Gamma Dose Rate Meter
Radiacmeter IM-179

Nuclear Corp of America
Denville, New Jersey
Contract NO. AF 41 (608)18554
	     US