Radiation

I decided to return to radiation again this week because of the accident at the Hanford nuclear storage site in Washington state. I know that even with a nuclear war potentially looming over the conflict on the Korean peninsula, most people will absolutely refuse to prepare for a high level radiation event no matter what. So this week we’ll take a look at a low level event. This meter, MyGeiger V3, is roughly $150, and it is a worthy investment to be able to measure what I would call “medium level” radiation.

I want to vomit sometimes when I see the lame stuff that is being thrown out there into the prepper market. Prepping has become a hot topic, but I think very few people in America understand just how grave our situation has become. I recently covered some of the disinformation when it comes to long term storable survival food, and this week I’m getting back to the topic of radiation. DHS just released a request for Wearable Intelligent Nuclear Detection (WIND) devices, but the concept of “dosimeters” has been around for decades. Just check your dirty bomb fear porn at the door. Radiation is one of the more dangerous topics when it comes to surviving after the collapse. This is a brief overview, and some inexpensive resources.

The most difficult part of writing this column has been to condense down everything I have learned into small, bite sized chunks, but when it comes to radiation, I think I have failed. Everyone wants to talk about nuclear bombs and EMP strikes, but getting someone to pay attention to what happens next is nearly impossible. Radiation, whether it be fallout from those initial nuclear strikes that may or may not happen, or from the nuclear plants that will melt down shortly after **whatever** burns down our current reality, will be a part of survival. If you are unprepared for it, you are going to die. I don’t see how I can make it more simple.

Resources: Geiger Counters: Ebay Seller Impexeris (This is the black GM tube bug from the video, which is a standalone as well as Iphone/Android, and the kits for GM tubes and Arduino) The Black Phone Bug RH Electronics (The red and blue boards from the video, DIY kits you can pay $12 for him to [...]

Answer:A $25,000 inflatable concrete building. Just add water.
Question: What is a Concrete Canvas Shelter?

Believe it or not, this is not a joke, and when I encountered this product it reminded me that I have been meaning to discuss the qualifications for a proper nuclear fallout shelter for some time. But I have to admit, of all the survival preparations I’ve written about for this column, this is one of very few I have not actually worked out for myself. That is why I found this product so interesting.

From what I can tell, nobody is going to send me a Facebook notification 24 hours before Russia, China, “terrorists” (ie. our own shadow government), or the US under official license launches a nuke. Radiation is silent once you are outside the blast radius of a nuclear bomb, so unless news of the blast makes it onto Drudge, how would you even know that a blast has occurred? Up until now we have focused our attention on Geiger tube radiation meters, but I recently found out that those meters tend to BLANK OUT at radiation levels that aren’t even on the level of a CT scan. For this article I consulted with Shane Connor, owner of the famous radiation site KI4U.com. I bought potassium iodide from him and had him calibrate my Civil Defense meter back in the 90s. He is still doing it today, and he calibrated four meters for us for this article.

With the Russian/Ukraine conflict now going hot, we really need to return to the topic of radiation, since both of these are nuclear armed countries, with nukes pointed at us. In part one of this article we covered the basics of inexpensive Geiger counters and the basic need to have one. Radiation is silent. Without a way to measure it where you reside, you will never know if you are being bombarded by a nuclear event, or whether that mushroom cloud you saw in the distance was just a conventional explosion. Dirty bombs, nuclear reactor accidents, suitcase nukes and of course ICBMs are scary things, but with your own Geiger counter you will instantly know if you are in danger or if, for now, you are not in danger. In this article we will use the $80 Version II MyGeiger kit that I ordered pre-soldered ($12), and the $20 SBM-20 Geiger tube. We will take a look at the actual numbers when it comes to radiation, as well as the free logging software. And most importantly, we will discuss the only preventative measure that you an take to protect you from radiation poisoning. It worked on nearly 100% of those treated after Chernobyl. If a nuclear event is coming, those without this key inexpensive ingredient on hand will not be happy campers.

Measuring radiation isn’t as complicated as all of the terminology makes it sound. Any radiation measuring device has some sort of Geiger–Müller tube, also called a G-M tube. The tube is a surprisingly simple device that turns any type of ionizing radiation into an electrical pulse. The rest of the machine we call “Geiger Counter” or “radiation meter” is just a signal amplification circuit that can contain computing chips and measurement dials or readouts. In a nuclear emergency there won’t be time for news of it to hit The Drudge Report. You’ll have to take evasive measures immediately (a topic for a future article). We are all waiting for the next big false flag or hoax catastrophe, and if it turns out to be nuclear, you’ll want some sort of Geiger counter, both to tell you when it is time to go inside, and also when it is ok to come out. For the most part, Geiger counters aren’t cheap. But I found a source for a DIY Geiger counter that takes only basic soldering for under $60, including the G-M tube. You can also get a no-solder option for still under $100, and they work great.