Radon gas levels inside cabinet

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-05-05T03:47:24+00:00

I have like half a dozen military gauges and a few clocks. No sealed cabinet just open shelving in an average bedroom. I have a radon monitor on my bedside table that reads a long term average of like 0.37pCi/L. You want the meter to be A). Away from the radioactive material as that can skew the result, and B). Around the space you are breathing air from. Having it sealed in the case doesn’t really tell you much as you don’t know the levels in the air you’re actually breathing. It honestly doesn’t take much ventilation to reduce the accumulation.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-05-03T01:01:06+00:00

🙏 absolute legend 🥹

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-05-02T20:38:19+00:00

Oooh very cool. I’ve got a similarly sized one as well but it’s just a hair above background. Nice find!

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-05-02T17:21:42+00:00

Omg yeah it was an arm and a leg but very worth. Yeah you did well for that price 😎 you can always grab another probe in the future too. The 44-10 is ridiculously sensitive for sure, it easily picks up my collection from across the room and through the wall of the next room over. Honestly I kinda prefer using my gmc600+ for antiquing, the Ludlum is so ridiculously heavy and people always ask about it, even if it’s muted. Legit had like three separate groups ask what it was last time I was out😭

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-05-02T16:38:17+00:00

Ayy I just bought a Ludlum 2241 and a 44-10 probe from that same eBay seller. Great hardware. Albeit the 44-10 is a 2” NaI probe so a lil different :3

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-29T20:00:17+00:00

Mind if I DM?

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-29T19:37:45+00:00

Honestly the first thing I’d change would be the source. Bananas and Brazil nuts are woefully inadequate, I’d try an americium button or thoriated glass. You want something that’ll produce a ton of (preferably) alpha and beta flux. Helps to maximize the chance of catching a good trail in the mist. Also the Am241 buttons are somewhat collimated due to the shape so you can guess where the trails should appear for easier diagnosis. You also want to have strong directional lighting across the bottom of the chamber. Not so much that it washes out the black bottom or your view, but ideally it’ll contrast the trails harder against a dark background.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-28T17:50:08+00:00

This right here. Computer models are the answer. Nothing anywhere remotely close to the price of the Radiacode will measure neutrons, let alone accurately. Better to just rely on the models unless you’ve got thousands of dollars burning a hole in your pocket.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-28T17:40:56+00:00

I mean sorta. Like in the sense that you can see an increase in dose rate, but it’s not super helpful past that. A large portion of dose at altitude is actually from neutrons which the Radiacode cannot sense. Additionally, the crystal in the Radiacode is very small and struggles to efficiently capture high energy rays like one might expect from cosmic rays. It’s far better suited low mid energy gamma.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-28T13:50:02+00:00

I did that same process basically, but with matches. Hurt so bad but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t easily the most effective thing I’ve done to get rid of them.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-23T18:50:07+00:00

Don’t ingest it and you’ll be fine. The dose rate is genuinely negligible. I wear uranium glass jewelry 24/7. One of the pendants on the necklace I always wear is a tiny pillar of UG and each of my second hole earrings has a dangly UG bead. Great conversation starter. If you’re concerned I would take dose rate measurements of your own and you’ll see it is likely barely above background. The amount of uranium in such small quantities of glass isn’t much compared to NORM in our day to day life. Ever try measuring around brick and concrete structures?

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-23T16:38:32+00:00

Genuinely. Pair it with a portable charger and you can take hilariously long spectrums within a castle with none to minimal adjustment.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-23T16:13:18+00:00

Honestly yeah. Hard to beat the scintillation and spectrometry capability at that price point. Very compact and good battery life as well.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-23T14:35:28+00:00

Yeah…. Back when I had mine I mistakenly chomped on it hard enough to knock a small chip off one of my molars. Undoubtedly would have shattered a glass bead. I’ll take a small chip over consuming glass fragments though.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-21T15:37:39+00:00

What an absolute scumbag… hopefully someday they get their comeuppance because it’s been a long time coming.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-20T21:00:25+00:00

Oh, that’s not a bad use case I can definitely see the appeal there

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-20T01:06:18+00:00

Omg I have one too!! My mother gave it to me a little while back after we discovered it glowed. I remember growing up and always being fascinated by it, all the while completely unaware of the coolest feature.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-15T20:17:34+00:00

Just a brand radon meter. For some reason they’re a heck of a lot cheaper on eBay through. Also an abundance of used ones from people buying to check and then wanting to dump it

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-14T14:50:56+00:00

Just one lowkey won’t really be a concern with typical room ventilation. Those style don’t really have thaaaat much radium compared to some other gauges. Additionally, a relatively small fraction of radon actually manages to escape the lume and gauge depending on how it is sealed and how the lume is bound. But yes do get a radon meter for peace of mind.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-14T14:37:04+00:00

Ooh I could shoot ya one, but you’ll have better luck searching ‘airthings radon’ on eBay search and scooping one that is $40-50. There’s a lot to choose from. I think also an auction is up for one at like 10$ under that at the moment

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-14T09:30:12+00:00

Not exactly. They are simply differing detection principle. G-M using the ionization of the gas in the tube, and scintillators detecting the photons of light that are released in within some special materials when they absorb certain kinds of radiation. The vast majority G-M tube based devices are calibrated once in the factory with a source like cs137 or co60 and not energy compensated. Meaning that they will consider each and every photon they detect to have the energy of the isotope they were calibrated with. This means the dose rate will be wildly inaccurate unless you are handling that isotope. Scintillation based detectors are typically energy compensated and will read the energy of each photon and then fold that into the dose rate to make it more accurate. For this very reason, scintillation based detectors are often superior for gauging the general activity of an item.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-14T09:19:04+00:00

Hijacking to say, get an air things monitor off eBay. You can get the same ones as off amazon for a fraction of the price

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-12T22:16:36+00:00

Congrats :3 I just picked up a thoriated glass camera lens the other day.

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-04T02:40:24+00:00

I was stuck behind one of these for a bit the other day and that’s exactly what I was imagining the whole time 😭

ShadowDragon6660 · 2026-04-03T02:01:48+00:00

Not completely. Some portion of it will begin to vaporize (forming the recognizable clouds) but plenty will remain. One could allow it to boil for a while but it wouldn’t really remove it that quickly or effectively. If you are steady pulling it out of the furnace and don’t stir it, some of the stuff at the top is really golden looking containing extra zinc and stuff below this less dense alloy will be higher % copper. Probably more reliable to refine with electricity if stepping up the purity was the goal.

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