Sunday, July 1, 2012

What's In The Box??? ...Radium Switches!

I received a box of surplus single pole double throw switches which turned out to be tipped with radium. I am checking the radioactivity at each step in opening the box, and bag of switches. Some of the switches are much hotter radiologically than others. Some are not radioactive at all. Subsequent to this video, I measured each switch (in the plastic baggie), and they range from around 1500 to 3000 CPM each on the Inspector. Out of the baggie, and about 1cm from the pancake probe the readings ranged from about 10K to 12K CPM, lots of alpha. Quite a difference. Geiger counters used are a Russian Kvarts DRSB-01, a GeoElectronics LENi Pro, and a Medcom Inspector Alert. Recorded on a Canon FS-11 camcorder.

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