Making Geiger Counters at emf

What better way to start the day than by building a Geiger counter. The session yesterday was fully booked so today saw me standing in my wellies (the weather has changed slightly) at the head of the queue to take part. I was lucky to get in, as in the previous session things got very busy. The bad news for everyone was that, due to a shortfall in Geiger tubes, not everyone would be able to take away a fully working device. But they are readily available on ebay for a modest price, and I never could resist a bit of soldering, so off we went.

It was wonderful. We had excellent instructions, plus lots of folks wandering around offering us components and advice. At the end of the day some of us walked away with working devices. Number one son got his built and working and even managed to get a tube to take home. I’m going to get myself a tube on ebay so that I can finish mine off . Somebody told me that bananas are a good source of radiation. I’m looking forward to investigating this.

Note that just because the counter makes a noise when you hold it close to something doesn’t make that thing dangerous. I’m very grateful to the folks from Bristol and their sponsors for making the whole thing possible though, it was awesome.