youve come so far bro. this is sick seeing u with 10k in one day. i remember a year or so ago u were underwatched and then overnight u became a radioactive sensation. Big ups brother never stop!!
In the 90s in the cardiac cath lab, we used a gama source to literally punch holes in the heart muscle to profuse the heart. Only as a last-ditch effort on hard cases.
I had only heard about neutron production being a potential issue with keeping bismuth in close proximity to other hotter sources. I can see why someone might think aluminum would be fine. I always learn something from your videos.
I collect radium and love it. I bought a complete box set of new watch hands in glass vials. Makes a super cool display. The box set has 24 vials with between 5-10 hands in each.
Great show! 25:30 you say the radium paint can flake off, therefor the dials should be fastened down so they do not constantly hit each other, or come into contact with each other to induce flaking.
That weird rectangle thing you pulled out after the powders was a Nume Card. It's supposed to be a health product and there are many like it and will say something like, "ion", "Quantum", or "anti-radiation" while being full of thorium. They are sold on Amazon but I think most of the ones being sold now are no longer radioactive because they got in trouble from being exposed on TH-cam but they still make the same wild health claims.
The Thought Emporium has that great video exposing all those "negative ion" bs products. I guess that's where you found out about those too. He's doing awesome work for explaining complex science for the masses, dude even cured his own lactose intolerance with ghetto CRISPR he made at home 👀💦
@@robertschemonia5617 Yes! Thank you lol The Thought Emporium negative ion pendants and he then made a follow up explained how his videos got them shut down, for anyone wondering.
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Are you sure they are not radioactive still? My aunt has one and I measured it and while it wasn’t anything remotely scary it was still giving me 50/60 cpm. (Compared to the background I was getting at 20cpm). So maybe it still had something? Could’ve also been my counter being weird with it).
Those are some very interesting sources! It’s super cool to see the count rates from the Am-241 on the RadEye B20-ER. Thanks for another great episode!
Drew, How do you clean your workspace after your done making a video like this or handling sources? Do you test the area once its all back in safe keeping?
I do test the area to make sure no contamination was left behind. Funny story...when making this video and getting those shots of the glowing radium watch hands, one managed to jump out of the folded paper onto my matte. I didn't see it at all because it was so small and flipped onto the backside. So when doing my check for contamination I found it. Then I did a check around the entire table and floor just to make sure nothing else escaped.
I got the radiacode 102 recently and it was worth every penny! I was able to find some uraninite a few days ago when I was in colorado that gave off 120,000 cpm! :D
i had no idea about that aluminum foil neutron production haha thats actually really cool! can't say i've ever ended up using foil for any of my stuff but also none of the things i own are hot enough to actually produce anything i dont think. i've been wanting to get one of those smoke detectors but i don't have the room for any of em lol. and i definitely do not have the proper storage for one with radium! enjoyed the video drew! i always end up learning something interesting from your videos!
the soviet union smoke detectors though, those are spicy, my Ludlum 12 is the highest range, although my one Ludlum I think goes into in a non linear scale up to several R, the hottest item in my collection is a large radium nighte stand clock, its enough to trip the alarm on my one counter from a power plant scanner
24:00 Those poor woman eating that by licking the tips of the little paint brushes ! But, think of all the other non radioactive poison they were throwing around back 100 years ago.
foods were better until nuclear... its still worse than the poisons now put into our foods nuclear is safe propaganda is still ongoing and maybe stronger now than it was back then ... so cringe. its not undounded claims... theres stuff put in our food now thats more toxic and has immiediate toxicity that can be worse than radium uranium throium.
@@Ixquick979 It seems like it always boils down to the price ! As a general rule of course. If you're rich enough to buy a herd share from an organic farmer you are probably better off than 95%of the folks 100years ago ? What do you think ?
radium was pretty safely used for 20 years without much issue. it was not till the war industry exploded production that they let very untrained people work with it, including letting those same people train other people for the job. it was known it was not safe to eat, these idiots were doing absolutely wild things with it like using it as makeup and straight up painting their teeth with it.
would've liked to have seen a final sweep of the counter over the table and your gloves to check for contamination before taking them off; the watch hands are more dangerous than the ThO2 powder to have open and are constantly flaking off microscopic RaSO4 paint flecks. Less material than the Th, but far higher specific activity.
True. Although given the fact the items were shipped in foil when it first arrived, I would assume he did a much more thorough check with more PPE and steps before making this video. As with anything safety related you'll get raked over the coals in the comments section. Just watch any video on people showing their process to prevent getting covid and the comment sections were an absolute clown show. So I'm going give Drew the benefit of the doubt, because heaven forbid he makes a video showing his full process. The comment section will become a ridiculous circus of silliness. He wore enough PPE in this video to remind viewers there's hazards involved with this activity and not so much that we can't hear what he says through the sounds of crinkling plastic sheets, ventilation fans, and a respirator.
hi Drew: another interesting video, for sure. Any info regarding that shielded storage box? I’d like to find one for some hot reference sources I keep for detector calibration. Thanks!
A British built helicopter from the 50,s in a museum had a full instrument panel with radium visible instruments, and the pilots sit right next to the panel, i assume the craft was to be used with the cockpit lights off on missions, radiation was not thought to be as dangerous in the 1950,s i think.
It’s not that it was thought about differently. It’s that the dose rate from an instrument panel such as that for a shift isn’t as horrible as you might think. Yes there would be an increase in dose for the pilot and copilot. But nothing substantial enough to cause health problems.
I normally don't like to pick up radioactive stuff with my bare hands. I started getting more comfortable with picking up blue apatite it is only 1300 cpm up to 2000 cpm . in the past that would of made me nervous but not anymore. The thing that bothers me if thinking about the particles getting stuck in my skin .
Hi Drew, thanks for all these videos. Americium and these other radioactive compounds are in every smoke detector commercially available. What does your gut tell you about this profligate behavior with radioactive compounds? Are we just making the same mistake we made with radium in the 10's & 20's? Or is it okay? Whenever I see a house that's burned down I think of the radioactive componds from the smoke detectors and mercury from the thermostats, several per house, irretrievably mixed into the soil. But what are your thoughts?
I wouldn't worry about such a small amount of material from 6 or more devices. Now if it was a warehouse that stored smoke detectors that burned down (which would be a bit ironic)...I would be concerned about the cleanup involved in that area. The problem with radium in the past was that people were ingesting it. The use of radium in watches, clocks or aircraft dials wasn't that big of a deal. Could be a source of contamination when the paint starts to become brittle and flaking off.
How you store the rocks you collect at mines and at other locations, and do you worry at all about the low level radiation emitted from these sources in your home?
I keep the uranium I have collected out in the garage. All the other really spicy stuff I keep in an old concrete lined safe. This only cuts down the radiation...doesn't block it completely.
Lucky!! Thanks Drew!!! What kind of box is that? Any idea where to get one? Regarding collections, I acquired a Radi-Glo ring (still on the card) a while back at an antique shop. It's one of my more prized items.
It's a lead lined [high density] polyethylene storage box, this one probably 5 x 14 x 5" usually around $1k new. Half that price or cheaper if you manage to find one used.
With the spectrum technique samples, why do different materials emit different types of radiation? I understand that they will likely emit some amount of alpha beta and gamma but just curious as to why some samples emit more of one type than the other? Like polonium is a heavy alpha emitter? Cool video btw! :) Also would you do a video showing your own collection of radioactive stuff you’ve found?
I'm planning on showing some of the more interesting pieces in my collection...once I have the time. Different isotopes decay by different emissions based on their binding force. It seems that's the reason why heavier isotopes decay through alpha decay (uranium, thorium). During that decay depending on the stability of the atom a gamma ray or beta particle can happen as a secondary emission. I would like to cover this topic and find a way to present it. Its still something I'm learning about, I find it extremely fascinating.
I recently came across a WW2 watch that my Radiacode 102 clearly recognized as radium, 40Kcpm, and it is cracked. I immediately put it in a ziplock, and placed it in my firebox. I can read elevated levels outside on the box, nothing too crazy, ~4-5kcpm, but I'd like to have a better container for it. That box is interesting, what is it made from?
is storing an radioactive rock (about 5,5 kcpm on radiacode 102 and about 2 microsieverts) in 2 ziplock bags and in a glass jar enough? there is a littlebit of a radiation increase when i place the radiacode against the jar.
Yes, that's enough. The glass will block the alpha and beta radiation. The only thing making its way through would be a little bit of that gamma radiation.
I did a video about one near Joshua Tree National Park. But that might be a thorium deposit and not uranium. I’ll do a video about some other uranium mines near Los Angeles.
There are lots of claims, but the only one I'm aware of that was a mine is "Black Widow" in the northern end of Los Padres National Forest, but I think there's some around Mojave
Haha I was wondering if it was raining or snow you could see out the window! Colorado’s does the same thing to us in may and even June/July up in the mountains. I’m on the western slope of CO in grand junction. I like watching the was videos, it’s fascinating to learn and play with something so powerful, that you can’t see or touch like radiation. Have you looked into any places here in Colorado like the Gunnison area? There was a lot of uranium mining in the area on the Cochetopa. I guess one of the biggest uranium deposits in the US runs thru and along the Cochetopa. (Pronounced kō chĭ tō pe) near Gunnison Colorado.
Question - what kind of training is needed for working in gamma spectroscopy? Is a full blown college degree required, or can you learn on your own? If it weren't so expensive, I'd learn myself.
i put a blue apatite crystal about 1300 cpm in tin foil to contain the particles and put it in a jar but i sometimes took it out . i didnt know it could cause a reaction like that .. i had a weird feeling about that that it is possible that aluminum foil could cause some type of reaction but i wasnt sure. Do you think it was ok? of course it is only 1300 cpm so
I’m sure it’s totally fine. Those neutron reactions require a lot of alpha particles coming off of a source to show up on a neutron detector and it takes loads of them to make a radioactive isotope.
Would you try putting it in a clear plastic bag then submerging the Co60? I'd love to see if it emits a glow? I did something similar with at university. Was fascinating to see that phenomena in person.
@The-One-and-Only100 Stupidity and boldness of youth. I remember it was in a really heavy, thick walled lead "chest" almost like a treasure chest. I often wonder how much of a dose I got. It was a very brief experiment, let me tell you that.
I originally requested a quote from Thermo Fisher. Then I got an email from this company advetage.com/ . They were very helpful and seem to have plenty of B20 and B20ERs in stock. Really nice people.
get some bungee straps for the case, one long way cross through handle, and one short way through handle. I love the channel but I don't see how you're so chill around that cobalt 60. Is it because its just a small piece? Please forgive my ignorance.
210Po due to its pathetically short half-life is one of my least favorite radionuclides, nothing against it but I’m not a fan of collecting radionuclides with short half-lives for obvious reasons even though polonium as an element is quite interesting 😔😔
I feel the same way about really short half-life isotopes. There might be a way to collect Po-210 from uranium ores and maybe even from high radon environments.
For a short time it isn't bad to handle these sources. But if you were to walk around holding the source in your hand all the time I'm sure there might be some damage to the skin from all the alpha radiation. Alpha radiation has a ton of energy but usually it deposits that energy quickly. So it doesn't have very good penetrating power.
The great thing about old Radium watch hands/dials is that, while the zinc sulfide's been trashed with age, they make enough alpha particles that you can just throw a layer of your cheapo Michael's glow paint on top of the old stuff and they'll glow good as new. It's especially nice if you find one of the military/diving watches that coated the whole face in the stuff instead of just the hands and numbers, if you use strontium aluminate glow paint instead of zinc sulfide you can practically use those things as a flashlight that never runs outta battery. Just, well, don't wear em very often unless your carpal tunnel is a bigger concern than the cancer risk, that hormesis hypothesis works wonders on inflammation and arthritis if you don't plan on living the 30 years it'll take to kill you. The Seiko watches with the Promethium work surprisingly good after 30 years too, you'd think the
so i m just a beginner.( read chemistry for dummies 3 times)...so can i put a couple chunks of americium in my lead lined container, wrap the source in aluminum, huck a cobalt drill bit in there huh? and have the neutrons radiate the coating ona drill bit ? huh? can i? huh? can I can I can I?
Doesn't totally work that way. Neutrons need to be slowed down a bit or they can miss the target. So they need to be moderated down to a thermal energy.
I can’t believe how much I learned from this video! I would like to know where you got the Geoelectronics radiation detection screen, and would uranium ore and lower gamma energy isotopes be strong enough to make the screen glow? Also, with beta emitters in contact with metals how much bremsstrahlung radiation would be given off? It must be very little as I never see any mention of this. I would think it would be very low energy on the gamma spectrum, if you could detect it at all, but I don’t know.
Here's a link to the eBay listing for that screen. www.ebay.com/itm/296292850850?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=s-DlLdAZRGa&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=phvzq5xqrby&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY The higher the alpha activity level of the source the easier it will be to see a blue glow. You would need a smokin hot piece of uranium ore for that glow to show up. Radium watch hands, americium button out of a regular smoke detector...there are pretty good sources to use. The source needs to be almost in contact with the screen for the best results.
Recently I began to create awareness in a large second hand store. I picked out some clocks with flaking radium. I told the manager to be realistic and responsible about recirculating this stuff These are goners. Dirty bombs. These should at least be identified and sold with a warning and general instruction. It's 2024, not 1924. They are ordering a Geiger counter. I'll check on their progress soon and will take some objects with me, I saved them from, for measurement. One was a clock without glass, shielding. I think that's an issue. It's tough with these local people. Not very communicative. I strongly advised professionals before and they dismissed me. They must have thought about me a lot, facing consequences and not cashing in. Let's not mess with radium.
thats harrassment... the best you can do is bag them and take them with you. as conplaining and leaving makes it more likely they will just toss them in the... a poont of contamination and nobody gets to find them... like they would in a shop. its an unreasonable expectation to assume people know anything about radiation or how to care for this stuff... you did, its your reaponsibility not theirs.
34:00 Say hard and then give us the Electron Volt per particle please. It's easy to look up for your notes and would make your lecture more interesting but not to overly technical.
Two things: 1) Is the REAL reason you don't want to grow your collection thru viewer contributions the possibility of critical mass in your house if you collect too much in that one location? 2) Are you TRYING to turn into a ghoul?
You really want strangers sending you all this dangerous crap? What are you going to do with it? How will all this stuff be managed once you die? Are you aware what lots of small doses over time does to you?
Nothing in this box was very dangerous. Also like I showed, the box does a really good job at blocking the radiation from these items. We are all exposed to ionizing radiation everyday. If you take a flight you are exposed to much more. Small doses do nothing because our bodies can handle that level of radiation. Its the high dose rates that our body has a very hard time recovering from.
That would be an interesting video. I just picked up some CDV detectors. Not really ones used during the uranium boom era and most wouldn’t be great at detecting uranium deposits.
There are so many things wrong with this video that this comment would be as long as a small book if I where to write them all out. The main problem is the americium. Pyrotronics foils have been proven to leak a lot, take a wipe and wipe the inside of the detector housing and you will be able to detect contamination because of they leaky foils. Your gloves are getting contaminated and everything you touch will have residual contamination on it, including your B20-ER that you probably paid the price of a small car to get. Another problem with americium is the inhalation. Americium getting into your body is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS due to the long biological half life and the percent of ingested americium that stays in your body. For Americium-241 to be more specific, about 90% of ingested americium stays inside the body while only 10% is excreted. This americium mainly goes to the liver, bones, and gonads. The portion that goes to your liver has a biological half life of 50 years, 20 years in the bones, and it will remain permanently in the gonads. I would seriously recommend getting professionals to scan your house for contamination. It requires special equipment and your method of scanning with a pancake will not tell you anything, especially when it comes to americium contamination. There are videos showcasing how bad pancakes are when scanning for americium contamination. Please try and improve your safety, I have seen so many comments giving you advice that you just seem to ignore.
@@plutoniumiscoolDefinitely not. Unless you have a spectrometer with an insanely low resolution like an HPGe, and even then the spectrometer would only detect the gamma rays so it's hard to estimate the amount of contamination there is. The best way to detect contamination is using an alpha scintillator.
Would throwing a smoke detector against a wall contaminate a basement of a single family house? Asking because I’ve been in basements with roughly handled smoke detectors. Demolishing and renovating Thanks!
Your concern is valid, however this is the risk that is taken when handling radioactive materials. The amount of americium that could have possibly contaminated his gloves or workspace is so incredibly small. He has shown in previous videos his decontamination routine, and properly educated viewers in this video on how to handle these sources responsibility. While it’s true that alpha sources are incredibly dangerous when ingested, the indescribably small amount that could have “leaked” is not measurably dangerous. You’d be in much worse shape handling uranium ore (which admittedly he does do on the channel) then handling a smoke detector with this kind of caution.
youve come so far bro. this is sick seeing u with 10k in one day. i remember a year or so ago u were underwatched and then overnight u became a radioactive sensation. Big ups brother never stop!!
Thanks. It’s cool to see the channel growing like it has. Got a bunch of irons in the fire.
In the 90s in the cardiac cath lab, we used a gama source to literally punch holes in the heart muscle to profuse the heart. Only as a last-ditch effort on hard cases.
Ah, so if I ever find myself randomly in the posession of half a metric ton of cobalt 60, I'll send it to Drew in a plastic box.
😆 You'd be dead in a second if you found that ☢😉
@@Kitsudote not before I take him down with me (and the mailman)
@@cwill2127 Literally lol.
Way back in the 1970's when I was doing B&W film developing I had a polonium anti-static brush. Nice to know wherever that thing is, it's dead now.
I had only heard about neutron production being a potential issue with keeping bismuth in close proximity to other hotter sources.
I can see why someone might think aluminum would be fine.
I always learn something from your videos.
I hope everyone learns something new from these videos. But like I said, the neutron production is so low it shouldn’t be a problem.
Yeah, there's a discord server full of people that don't believe in neutrons from aluminum, and I'm glad I left that toxic server
which is why aluminum cars heat up faster in the sun vs a steel body car 🤓
I collect radium and love it. I bought a complete box set of new watch hands in glass vials. Makes a super cool display. The box set has 24 vials with between 5-10 hands in each.
That does sound cool.
The people who mount things in clear resin could make some really cool looking items with those watch hands.
@OnTheRiver66 oh I’m sure they could.
Great show! 25:30 you say the radium paint can flake off, therefor the dials should be fastened down so they do not constantly hit each other, or come into contact with each other to induce flaking.
That weird rectangle thing you pulled out after the powders was a Nume Card. It's supposed to be a health product and there are many like it and will say something like, "ion", "Quantum", or "anti-radiation" while being full of thorium. They are sold on Amazon but I think most of the ones being sold now are no longer radioactive because they got in trouble from being exposed on TH-cam but they still make the same wild health claims.
The Thought Emporium has that great video exposing all those "negative ion" bs products. I guess that's where you found out about those too.
He's doing awesome work for explaining complex science for the masses, dude even cured his own lactose intolerance with ghetto CRISPR he made at home 👀💦
(oh, and he cured it only for about 3 months but still an awesome achievement for a "home scientist")
The Thought Emporium. That's the channel name.
@@robertschemonia5617 Yes! Thank you lol The Thought Emporium negative ion pendants and he then made a follow up explained how his videos got them shut down, for anyone wondering.
Are you sure they are not radioactive still? My aunt has one and I measured it and while it wasn’t anything remotely scary it was still giving me 50/60 cpm. (Compared to the background I was getting at 20cpm). So maybe it still had something? Could’ve also been my counter being weird with it).
This is like Christmas and Easter together! The best and interesting present/toys you can get, especially the alpha emitters.
It was a very interesting box to go through.
Those are some very interesting sources! It’s super cool to see the count rates from the Am-241 on the RadEye B20-ER. Thanks for another great episode!
It was nice to finally see what the count rate was from a source like that.
@@RadioactiveDrew Absolutely!
I found this content scintillating
Yeah. Got me positively glowing !! 😂😂
Thy used radium up to the 70s and once the girls stopped eating it there was no longer issues. I have a huge radium clock collection.
Radium is a very interesting isotope to deal with. The glow is pretty cool.
Pretty cool seeing Co-60 in a calibration disk. Thanks for the great content.
Drew, How do you clean your workspace after your done making a video like this or handling sources? Do you test the area once its all back in safe keeping?
I do test the area to make sure no contamination was left behind. Funny story...when making this video and getting those shots of the glowing radium watch hands, one managed to jump out of the folded paper onto my matte. I didn't see it at all because it was so small and flipped onto the backside. So when doing my check for contamination I found it. Then I did a check around the entire table and floor just to make sure nothing else escaped.
Enjoyed your video Drew. Thank you for showing each item and explaining what type of radiation it emits and how the detectors respond.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Fun way to spend a cold snowy day ! 😢
I got the radiacode 102 recently and it was worth every penny! I was able to find some uraninite a few days ago when I was in colorado that gave off 120,000 cpm! :D
That sounds very spicy.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah! Currently the hottest thing I own in less the size of a half dollar!
Verry happy with them! :)
thats some heavy rain outside there buddy 😂 Edit - Ah snow lol
also it would be interesting to see those really active sources in a cloud chamber
i had no idea about that aluminum foil neutron production haha thats actually really cool! can't say i've ever ended up using foil for any of my stuff but also none of the things i own are hot enough to actually produce anything i dont think.
i've been wanting to get one of those smoke detectors but i don't have the room for any of em lol. and i definitely do not have the proper storage for one with radium!
enjoyed the video drew! i always end up learning something interesting from your videos!
the soviet union smoke detectors though, those are spicy, my Ludlum 12 is the highest range, although my one Ludlum I think goes into in a non linear scale up to several R, the hottest item in my collection is a large radium nighte stand clock, its enough to trip the alarm on my one counter from a power plant scanner
Industrial smoke detectors in general are usually spicy
@@madmax2069Sounds tasty, not quite as good as Polonium 210 right from the breeder reactor. LoL 🤣
4:59 Playing with an old smoke detector while the battery is dying in your home smoke detector. 😂😂😂
@RadioactiveDrew >>> Great video...👍
24:00 Those poor woman eating that by licking the tips of the little paint brushes ! But, think of all the other non radioactive poison they were throwing around back 100 years ago.
It is funny when people today complain about additives in food making people sick and claiming that food back than was much safer.
foods were better until nuclear...
its still worse than the poisons now put into our foods
nuclear is safe propaganda is still ongoing and maybe stronger now than it was back then ... so cringe.
its not undounded claims... theres stuff put in our food now thats more toxic and has immiediate toxicity that can be worse than radium uranium throium.
@@Ixquick979 It seems like it always boils down to the price ! As a general rule of course. If you're rich enough to buy a herd share from an organic farmer you are probably better off than 95%of the folks 100years ago ? What do you think ?
radium was pretty safely used for 20 years without much issue. it was not till the war industry exploded production that they let very untrained people work with it, including letting those same people train other people for the job. it was known it was not safe to eat, these idiots were doing absolutely wild things with it like using it as makeup and straight up painting their teeth with it.
Another awesome video, and love the new detector!
Thanks. I’m looking forward to making a video about it.
The white powder is most likely thorium dioxide and the yellow/green powder (which is fluorescent under UV) would most likely be uranyl nitrate.
I've seen cesium test cards around. Haven't got around to ordering one yet, but they're supposed to be great for calibrating the Radiacode.
They should start making cesium needle sources since you need one for the point source on the activity tab (used to measure cesium in food)
Interesting to see how the Americium sources are actually configured inside the industrial smoke detectors.
would've liked to have seen a final sweep of the counter over the table and your gloves to check for contamination before taking them off; the watch hands are more dangerous than the ThO2 powder to have open and are constantly flaking off microscopic RaSO4 paint flecks. Less material than the Th, but far higher specific activity.
I need to get one of those white boxes
Thanks for sharing.
No problem, thanks for the comment.
How do you protect yourself from contamination when your gloves touch other things? Do you clean off those other things like your meters?
I was thinking the same thing
True. Although given the fact the items were shipped in foil when it first arrived, I would assume he did a much more thorough check with more PPE and steps before making this video. As with anything safety related you'll get raked over the coals in the comments section. Just watch any video on people showing their process to prevent getting covid and the comment sections were an absolute clown show.
So I'm going give Drew the benefit of the doubt, because heaven forbid he makes a video showing his full process. The comment section will become a ridiculous circus of silliness. He wore enough PPE in this video to remind viewers there's hazards involved with this activity and not so much that we can't hear what he says through the sounds of crinkling plastic sheets, ventilation fans, and a respirator.
Some people huff glue, some huff radon 🤣
Pretty sure radon won't get you high.
@@RadioactiveDrew No 😆 but probably still better than glue 😅
When I was a kid, I turned my wrist watch away from my face whilst I was sleeping ! LoL 🤣
hi Drew: another interesting video, for sure. Any info regarding that shielded storage box? I’d like to find one for some hot reference sources I keep for detector calibration. Thanks!
Many people are wondering about the box, it appears to be a 5 x 14 x 5" lead lined [high density] polyethylene storage box.
A British built helicopter from the 50,s in a museum had a full instrument panel with radium visible instruments, and the pilots sit right next to the panel, i assume the craft was to be used with the cockpit lights off on missions, radiation was not thought to be as dangerous in the 1950,s i think.
It’s not that it was thought about differently. It’s that the dose rate from an instrument panel such as that for a shift isn’t as horrible as you might think. Yes there would be an increase in dose for the pilot and copilot. But nothing substantial enough to cause health problems.
Sweet, aluminum and alpha producing neutron, I can test my neutron dosimeter meter now, thanks
No problem, hope it works out.
I normally don't like to pick up radioactive stuff with my bare hands. I started getting more comfortable with picking up blue apatite it is only 1300 cpm up to 2000 cpm . in the past that would of made me nervous but not anymore. The thing that bothers me if thinking about the particles getting stuck in my skin .
I’ve had contamination on my fingers a couple times. Not a fun time scrubbing that out.
@@RadioactiveDrew that definitely sounds not fun at all... scary
Hi Drew, thanks for all these videos. Americium and these other radioactive compounds are in every smoke detector commercially available. What does your gut tell you about this profligate behavior with radioactive compounds? Are we just making the same mistake we made with radium in the 10's & 20's? Or is it okay? Whenever I see a house that's burned down I think of the radioactive componds from the smoke detectors and mercury from the thermostats, several per house, irretrievably mixed into the soil. But what are your thoughts?
I wouldn't worry about such a small amount of material from 6 or more devices. Now if it was a warehouse that stored smoke detectors that burned down (which would be a bit ironic)...I would be concerned about the cleanup involved in that area. The problem with radium in the past was that people were ingesting it. The use of radium in watches, clocks or aircraft dials wasn't that big of a deal. Could be a source of contamination when the paint starts to become brittle and flaking off.
Great video !!
Thanks.
That box is interesting. Do you have any info on it?
Pretty sure its this one on Amazon amzn.to/40d3AMX
if you think about all the common household or industrial objects around us that are potentially "hot" to help safe guard our lives
Polonium 210; the soviet sugar cube.
How you store the rocks you collect at mines and at other locations, and do you worry at all about the low level radiation emitted from these sources in your home?
I keep the uranium I have collected out in the garage. All the other really spicy stuff I keep in an old concrete lined safe. This only cuts down the radiation...doesn't block it completely.
Packing them all together might make a critical mass!....jk :)
Lucky!! Thanks Drew!!! What kind of box is that? Any idea where to get one?
Regarding collections, I acquired a Radi-Glo ring (still on the card) a while back at an antique shop. It's one of my more prized items.
It's a lead lined [high density] polyethylene storage box, this one probably 5 x 14 x 5" usually around $1k new. Half that price or cheaper if you manage to find one used.
With the spectrum technique samples, why do different materials emit different types of radiation? I understand that they will likely emit some amount of alpha beta and gamma but just curious as to why some samples emit more of one type than the other? Like polonium is a heavy alpha emitter? Cool video btw! :)
Also would you do a video showing your own collection of radioactive stuff you’ve found?
I'm planning on showing some of the more interesting pieces in my collection...once I have the time.
Different isotopes decay by different emissions based on their binding force. It seems that's the reason why heavier isotopes decay through alpha decay (uranium, thorium). During that decay depending on the stability of the atom a gamma ray or beta particle can happen as a secondary emission. I would like to cover this topic and find a way to present it. Its still something I'm learning about, I find it extremely fascinating.
I recently came across a WW2 watch that my Radiacode 102 clearly recognized as radium, 40Kcpm, and it is cracked. I immediately put it in a ziplock, and placed it in my firebox. I can read elevated levels outside on the box, nothing too crazy, ~4-5kcpm, but I'd like to have a better container for it. That box is interesting, what is it made from?
I believe it’s made from lead and HDPE. There’s a link to a box in the videos description. I’m assuming it’s the same box the person sent me.
@@RadioactiveDrew My goodness, that is pricey! 😅 💸 I think a lead pig would suffice.
@Slimpawws lead pig would be more than adequate.
is storing an radioactive rock (about 5,5 kcpm on radiacode 102 and about 2 microsieverts) in 2 ziplock bags and in a glass jar enough? there is a littlebit of a radiation increase when i place the radiacode against the jar.
Yes, that's enough. The glass will block the alpha and beta radiation. The only thing making its way through would be a little bit of that gamma radiation.
Drew what are some abandoned uranium mines in Southern California if there is any?
I did a video about one near Joshua Tree National Park. But that might be a thorium deposit and not uranium. I’ll do a video about some other uranium mines near Los Angeles.
There are lots of claims, but the only one I'm aware of that was a mine is "Black Widow" in the northern end of Los Padres National Forest, but I think there's some around Mojave
What was the box made of that cut down the radiation that much?
It's a lead lined [high density] polyethylene storage box
23:20 Nice and dusty!
Will they be for sale on your website
Haha I was wondering if it was raining or snow you could see out the window! Colorado’s does the same thing to us in may and even June/July up in the mountains. I’m on the western slope of CO in grand junction.
I like watching the was videos, it’s fascinating to learn and play with something so powerful, that you can’t see or touch like radiation.
Have you looked into any places here in Colorado like the Gunnison area? There was a lot of uranium mining in the area on the Cochetopa. I guess one of the biggest uranium deposits in the US runs thru and along the Cochetopa. (Pronounced kō chĭ tō pe) near Gunnison Colorado.
Question - what kind of training is needed for working in gamma spectroscopy? Is a full blown college degree required, or can you learn on your own? If it weren't so expensive, I'd learn myself.
You can buy a 300 dollar gamma spectrometer (radiacode), and no training is required. Just watch a few videos, see others use one, and read the manual
Most outstanding. What Android device are you using please?
Still waiting for the day that someone sends me a box full of radioactive material...
i put a blue apatite crystal about 1300 cpm in tin foil to contain the particles and put it in a jar but i sometimes took it out . i didnt know it could cause a reaction like that .. i had a weird feeling about that that it is possible that aluminum foil could cause some type of reaction but i wasnt sure. Do you think it was ok? of course it is only 1300 cpm so
I’m sure it’s totally fine. Those neutron reactions require a lot of alpha particles coming off of a source to show up on a neutron detector and it takes loads of them to make a radioactive isotope.
@@RadioactiveDrew yea the whole purpose of putting it in tin foil at first was to minimize the gamma lol. my other apatite i have it in a plastic bag
anyway thanks for answering
What video editing software do you use?
DaVinci Resolve. I’ve used FCP and Premiere for years before switching. It’s much better and faster than the other ones.
That just screams put me in a cloud chamber
Believe me, I hear it all the time..."when are you going to make a cloud chamber". Its something always on my mind.
@@RadioactiveDrew its a lot of work i know. greetings from germany
Would you try putting it in a clear plastic bag then submerging the Co60? I'd love to see if it emits a glow?
I did something similar with at university. Was fascinating to see that phenomena in person.
That sounds like a great experiment
I've done it. I don't know how active his sample is, but the one i had at uni was very new. BTW it WASN'T sanctioned by the uni!@The-One-and-Only100
@garethjohnstone9282 it's 1 uCi, so not really active
Also, it wasn't sanctioned by the university 😱 that's not common, but really cool
@The-One-and-Only100 Stupidity and boldness of youth. I remember it was in a really heavy, thick walled lead "chest" almost like a treasure chest.
I often wonder how much of a dose I got. It was a very brief experiment, let me tell you that.
@garethjohnstone9282 What did it look like like size shape and any markings about it
If its snowing at your house, does that make it a nuclear winter?
Not quite...its just how Montana is.
How low do emissions have to be before you can ship it?
I've had some pretty spicy items shipped to me with no problems. There is a limit listed on the USPS site...can't remember it off the top of my head.
Can you link the site that you got your radeye from please?
I originally requested a quote from Thermo Fisher. Then I got an email from this company advetage.com/ . They were very helpful and seem to have plenty of B20 and B20ERs in stock. Really nice people.
get some bungee straps for the case, one long way cross through handle, and one short way through handle. I love the channel but I don't see how you're so chill around that cobalt 60. Is it because its just a small piece? Please forgive my ignorance.
Yes, it’s because it’s so small. Cobalt-60 can be a very intense isotope to be around…if it’s in large enough quantities.
if it produces neutrons couldnt that technically cause fission? of uranium near by?
It could...but a couple fissions isn't going to do much.
9:49 when you said you have a treat, I already knew what was coming because you replied to me 2 months ago that you bought the ER model.
I'm happy I got the B20ER. I'll do a video about it.
Have an early nuclear golf ball detector would love to see it work sadly need 2 45 volt batteries to power
How do you mail radioactive stuff ?! Is it even allowed ?
Heaving snowing, at begin of June??
I shot the video around the middle of May. Last heavy snow we had here was May 23rd. But I've seen it snow every month here in Montana.
@@RadioactiveDrew I see, thank you!
What material is the box made with that's making it that effective?
Lead and HDPE.
Yeah, it looks to be lead and HDPE.
@@RadioactiveDrew @Daves_RadCollection Thanks. That's what I was thinking. Lead and resin or plastic.
Damn it. The 103 doesn't give good gamma and beta readings?
Great gamma readings...but it isn't designed to detect beta radiation.
210Po due to its pathetically short half-life is one of my least favorite radionuclides, nothing against it but I’m not a fan of collecting radionuclides with short half-lives for obvious reasons even though polonium as an element is quite interesting 😔😔
I feel the same way about really short half-life isotopes. There might be a way to collect Po-210 from uranium ores and maybe even from high radon environments.
1.5 million counts? How dangerous is that holding in your hand?
For a short time it isn't bad to handle these sources. But if you were to walk around holding the source in your hand all the time I'm sure there might be some damage to the skin from all the alpha radiation. Alpha radiation has a ton of energy but usually it deposits that energy quickly. So it doesn't have very good penetrating power.
@@RadioactiveDrew thanks for answering!
@@James-hy8gu no problem.
The great thing about old Radium watch hands/dials is that, while the zinc sulfide's been trashed with age, they make enough alpha particles that you can just throw a layer of your cheapo Michael's glow paint on top of the old stuff and they'll glow good as new. It's especially nice if you find one of the military/diving watches that coated the whole face in the stuff instead of just the hands and numbers, if you use strontium aluminate glow paint instead of zinc sulfide you can practically use those things as a flashlight that never runs outta battery. Just, well, don't wear em very often unless your carpal tunnel is a bigger concern than the cancer risk, that hormesis hypothesis works wonders on inflammation and arthritis if you don't plan on living the 30 years it'll take to kill you. The Seiko watches with the Promethium work surprisingly good after 30 years too, you'd think the
so i m just a beginner.( read chemistry for dummies 3 times)...so can i put a couple chunks of americium in my lead lined container, wrap the source in aluminum, huck a cobalt drill bit in there huh? and have the neutrons radiate the coating ona drill bit ? huh? can i? huh? can I can I can I?
Doesn't totally work that way. Neutrons need to be slowed down a bit or they can miss the target. So they need to be moderated down to a thermal energy.
@@RadioactiveDrew thank you not about to be another boyscout...just have a curiosity. how about a graphite lined jar of water
@thenorm8489 nothing wrong with curiosity in science.
Lmfao what people collect
What would you even do if someone sent you some plutonium, even a tiny amount or something contaminated with it.
Welp, time to throw away my aluminium
I can’t believe how much I learned from this video! I would like to know where you got the Geoelectronics radiation detection screen, and would uranium ore and lower gamma energy isotopes be strong enough to make the screen glow? Also, with beta emitters in contact with metals how much bremsstrahlung radiation would be given off? It must be very little as I never see any mention of this. I would think it would be very low energy on the gamma spectrum, if you could detect it at all, but I don’t know.
Here's a link to the eBay listing for that screen.
www.ebay.com/itm/296292850850?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=s-DlLdAZRGa&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=phvzq5xqrby&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
The higher the alpha activity level of the source the easier it will be to see a blue glow. You would need a smokin hot piece of uranium ore for that glow to show up. Radium watch hands, americium button out of a regular smoke detector...there are pretty good sources to use. The source needs to be almost in contact with the screen for the best results.
No sound ?
Recently I began to create awareness in a large second hand store. I picked out some clocks with flaking radium. I told the manager to be realistic and responsible about recirculating this stuff These are goners. Dirty bombs. These should at least be identified and sold with a warning and general instruction. It's 2024, not 1924. They are ordering a Geiger counter. I'll check on their progress soon and will take some objects with me, I saved them from, for measurement. One was a clock without glass, shielding. I think that's an issue. It's tough with these local people. Not very communicative. I strongly advised professionals before and they dismissed me. They must have thought about me a lot, facing consequences and not cashing in. Let's not mess with radium.
thats harrassment...
the best you can do is bag them and take them with you.
as conplaining and leaving makes it more likely they will just toss them in the... a poont of contamination and nobody gets to find them... like they would in a shop.
its an unreasonable expectation to assume people know anything about radiation or how to care for this stuff... you did, its your reaponsibility not theirs.
21:40 What if you put those powders in an inhaler and sucked it in ? Would that be like a day at the mine for those poor miners ?
34:00 Say hard and then give us the Electron Volt per particle please. It's easy to look up for your notes and would make your lecture more interesting but not to overly technical.
Two things:
1) Is the REAL reason you don't want to grow your collection thru viewer contributions the possibility of critical mass in your house if you collect too much in that one location?
2) Are you TRYING to turn into a ghoul?
No, the real reason is that viewers should grow their own collections and keep the hobby alive
@@The-One-and-Only100 I know. I was just making jokes. I of course know the real reason, as he stated. 🙄
@sski I know it was a joke. I saw it when looking at my pip boy and had to reply
@@The-One-and-Only100 Arg! You Vault dwellers with yer pep boys n yer vaunt suits. We green n got trees growin outta our heads over here.
@sski Yes, my name is Gary, and I'm from Vault 108, and we are awesome
:)
Americim is boring ahhhhhh
Americium 241 is a cool isotope to have in a collection. It can also be used in other experiments.
You really want strangers sending you all this dangerous crap? What are you going to do with it? How will all this stuff be managed once you die? Are you aware what lots of small doses over time does to you?
Nothing in this box was very dangerous. Also like I showed, the box does a really good job at blocking the radiation from these items. We are all exposed to ionizing radiation everyday. If you take a flight you are exposed to much more. Small doses do nothing because our bodies can handle that level of radiation. Its the high dose rates that our body has a very hard time recovering from.
I would love to see a video of vintage Geiger counters from the uranium boom era.
Do you have something like that in your collection?
That would be an interesting video. I just picked up some CDV detectors. Not really ones used during the uranium boom era and most wouldn’t be great at detecting uranium deposits.
There are so many things wrong with this video that this comment would be as long as a small book if I where to write them all out. The main problem is the americium. Pyrotronics foils have been proven to leak a lot, take a wipe and wipe the inside of the detector housing and you will be able to detect contamination because of they leaky foils. Your gloves are getting contaminated and everything you touch will have residual contamination on it, including your B20-ER that you probably paid the price of a small car to get. Another problem with americium is the inhalation. Americium getting into your body is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS due to the long biological half life and the percent of ingested americium that stays in your body. For Americium-241 to be more specific, about 90% of ingested americium stays inside the body while only 10% is excreted. This americium mainly goes to the liver, bones, and gonads. The portion that goes to your liver has a biological half life of 50 years, 20 years in the bones, and it will remain permanently in the gonads. I would seriously recommend getting professionals to scan your house for contamination. It requires special equipment and your method of scanning with a pancake will not tell you anything, especially when it comes to americium contamination. There are videos showcasing how bad pancakes are when scanning for americium contamination. Please try and improve your safety, I have seen so many comments giving you advice that you just seem to ignore.
Would gammaspectrometry be able to detect contamination on the gloves?
@@plutoniumiscoolDefinitely not. Unless you have a spectrometer with an insanely low resolution like an HPGe, and even then the spectrometer would only detect the gamma rays so it's hard to estimate the amount of contamination there is. The best way to detect contamination is using an alpha scintillator.
Would throwing a smoke detector against a wall contaminate a basement of a single family house?
Asking because I’ve been in basements with roughly handled smoke detectors. Demolishing and renovating
Thanks!
@@Dudeguymansir it really depends on if the source inside is damaged or leaking.
Your concern is valid, however this is the risk that is taken when handling radioactive materials. The amount of americium that could have possibly contaminated his gloves or workspace is so incredibly small. He has shown in previous videos his decontamination routine, and properly educated viewers in this video on how to handle these sources responsibility. While it’s true that alpha sources are incredibly dangerous when ingested, the indescribably small amount that could have “leaked” is not measurably dangerous. You’d be in much worse shape handling uranium ore (which admittedly he does do on the channel) then handling a smoke detector with this kind of caution.