Recently there was a report of a radiation scare at Sellafield (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-25975785). I'm sure this was no more than the report indicated - ie not much.
However it got me thinking - if there was a bad radiation situation - how would I know? Would I be relying on the news to tell me the truth? What if there wasn't any news being broadcast - I would have to assume that something very bad had happened - possibly nuclear - but I'd have no clue if there were very high radiation levels outside my house.
If it were practical I'd like to get a gieger counter so I'd always have the ability to check radiation levels myself. However when I search online for them I see several different types - ranging from £20 to thousands. Some of the cheap ones are probably rubbish (eg some are measuring EM radiation - which even I know is a very different thing).
Anyone know what you have to spend to get a gieger counter that would actually work in the context of dangerous levels of radioactivity? Can I get something effective for less than £100?
Here are examples of what you can find on amazon : http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_ ... Caps%2C257
Note - in general I think there is a lot of unecessary fear mongering about radiation - at low levels I'm not at all worried about it. However the fact that the rest of the world seems mostly to be insanely, irrationally scared of any level of radiation makes me even more concerned that if there was a real danger I might not hear the full story from the authorities very quickly as they try to avoid mass panic.
- delard
p.s. here is a cool chart showing the different orders of magnitude of radiation. I'm only concerned about the large-green and red parts of this :
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
