Joined
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36 Posts
Hello to all. I ve been lurking for some time and decided to join in light of the lessons to be learned from Japan.
For the past 10 years I lived in Mexico -- I came back to the USA 14 months ago because of security considerations there. Currently I am planning another trip South, somewhere in South America.
For a number of reasons my life in Mexico was a lot different than here-- one always kept spare potable water, a source of light, extra food and so on. Part of this from the reliability of the infrastructure and part form my years before as an offshore sailor in small boats. Here in the US in suburbia many times I find the level of preparedness is 0.
I owned a gieger counter many years ago. After having given it away to friends and in light of what seems like it will be a drawn out problem with radiation emissions from Japan in wake of their tragedy, I purchased another today. Delivery is this coming Saturday. The new machine is a Johnson GSM 505DP. The machine comes both with the pancake probe and the scintillation detector.
Aside from the fact that I like neat gadgets, what prompted this was a couple of stories I read about radiation primarily in foodstuffs and in drinking water. We had our first rain here on the Gulf Coast since the disaster in Japan. I would have loved to have been able to establish a background level and compare that to results of the rain-- and water in puddles &c to see what kind of difference might have been detectable.
So where I am going with this is-- is there any type of publication or guide on the internet to teach one how to use a counter properly--i.e.detection in drinking water for example or in food. I read about wipe tests and for the most part understand that but there is a lot about the actual use of the counter that i do not know. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks for the many wonderful people here and for all of the knowledge about living prepared. Additionally thanks for the interest in reading my first post.
Expat42451
For the past 10 years I lived in Mexico -- I came back to the USA 14 months ago because of security considerations there. Currently I am planning another trip South, somewhere in South America.
For a number of reasons my life in Mexico was a lot different than here-- one always kept spare potable water, a source of light, extra food and so on. Part of this from the reliability of the infrastructure and part form my years before as an offshore sailor in small boats. Here in the US in suburbia many times I find the level of preparedness is 0.
I owned a gieger counter many years ago. After having given it away to friends and in light of what seems like it will be a drawn out problem with radiation emissions from Japan in wake of their tragedy, I purchased another today. Delivery is this coming Saturday. The new machine is a Johnson GSM 505DP. The machine comes both with the pancake probe and the scintillation detector.
Aside from the fact that I like neat gadgets, what prompted this was a couple of stories I read about radiation primarily in foodstuffs and in drinking water. We had our first rain here on the Gulf Coast since the disaster in Japan. I would have loved to have been able to establish a background level and compare that to results of the rain-- and water in puddles &c to see what kind of difference might have been detectable.
So where I am going with this is-- is there any type of publication or guide on the internet to teach one how to use a counter properly--i.e.detection in drinking water for example or in food. I read about wipe tests and for the most part understand that but there is a lot about the actual use of the counter that i do not know. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks for the many wonderful people here and for all of the knowledge about living prepared. Additionally thanks for the interest in reading my first post.
Expat42451