What you shouldn’t touch with your hands (radioactivity in everyday life) (22 photos)

Category: Interesting photo stories, PEGI 0+

12 April 2012

As a rule, while walking around abandoned objects, we sooner or later come across products that may pose a danger; as a rule, devices containing radioactive filling were specially marked with characteristic symbols. But this may not be the case, for example, on the fire alarm sensors (rid1-rid3) not all of them have warning signs, and the light from them is about 200 mkrh. from everyone. After the collapse of the USSR, everyone stopped buying these products and a great many of them remained abandoned. They were installed everywhere, even in schools and hospitals.

Here is a selection of items you should stay away from:

SEXTANT

A very beautiful thing - it’s called a sextant (or sextant), whoever likes it better calls it that. Often found in the apartments of experienced sea wolves as a wall toy. The scales of devices produced before the 70s are made using continuous phosphor (SPD) based on radium-226 salts. The dose rate of gamma radiation is visible on the device.
Safety: you can do whatever you want within a meter from the device.
Danger: the possibility of contamination of hands, clothes and anything else you want with radium and its daughter decay products (DPR). The main thing is that radon gas, which is released from this device, will enter the lungs and there will be happiness, especially in the apartment where the device will hang.
What you should absolutely not do: grab it with your bare hands, disassemble it, peel off the paint and quickly drag it home.
What to do: Call Rospotrebnadzor or the Ministry of Emergency Situations or the Ministry of Internal Affairs and clearly explain what they found and where - your presence is not necessary after the arrival of any of the above structures.

ICE SENSOR

Icing sensor type RIO-3. It can be found at airfields, repair shops and even on the roof of your house. Contains a very decent source of strontium-90.

The dosimeter senses it already on the meter. What to do and not to do - see above. The only pleasant thing about this device is that if it is not destroyed, then you can protect yourself with a screen, no gas is released, there will be no pollution...

DIVING WATCH

Diver's watch. Everything that can be said about them is said in the section about the sextant.

If you're interested, I can post a few more photos from my archive.

UNKNOWN THING

But this little thing, which also contains an SPD with radium-226 for a generally unclear purpose... If anyone can tell me what it is, I will be grateful.

UNIDENTIFIED

Here is an interesting exhibit... It may be found in military locations, civil defense units, NBC protection units, and generally just in scrap metal - the dimensions may be different - larger, but the shape is approximately the same. Inside there is a source based on cesium-137.
I warn you - you shouldn’t meddle with such a thing even at a distance closer than a meter. The dose rate per centimeter from such sources can be calculated at 1 or more roentgens per hour. (in the picture - 1,2) Such sources were (and are) used in calibration rulers for checking dosimeters. I had the opportunity to pull out a similar one from scrap metal with a dose rate per 1 centimeter of more than 5000 (why inaccurate - because there was no device that would measure more than 5000) roentgens per hour, a dosimeter type PM1203-04 choked 7 meters from it...

LABORATORY CONTAINERS

Laboratory containers. Anything could be inside.
The top one was found behind the garages on December 30 last year.
The guy below used it as an anchor for a boat and went fishing...
The upper one was empty, but in the lower one there was a source...

SIGHTS FROM A KALASHNIKOV AUTOMATIC MACHINE

These things are attachments for sighting devices of a Kalashnikov assault rifle for shooting at night. The same SPD based on radium-226 was used. They are found in large numbers in small arms depots. Dose rate per centimeter is up to 6 milliroentgen per hour...

TRANSVERSE DETAILS

These things used to glow in the dark, and were installed in such pipes, the purpose of the pipes is not known for certain, there are only guesses - to indicate dimensions at night, they are found often and everywhere, even in the Republic of Korea.. They contain radium-based SPD

This thing had the same things on it - but it was easier with it; it had a nameplate with the name - “Cross beam for lifting...”

GAMMA SOURCE UNIT "E" TYPE

This miracle is nothing more than a block of gamma source type E
E - probably because it was Estonian, produced at the Tallinn Instrument-Making Plant, sold by all ISOTOPES in the country (including Tashkent)
There are 4 types - E-1M, E-2M, E-3M, E-4M.
The lightest is 4 - about 40 kilograms, and 1 - 160. A serious thing - the dose rate in a beam from it at 1 meter can reach 1.5 - 2 roentgens per hour. Cesium-137.
Attention!!! similar things can be found even in places where radiation has only been heard of by hearsay - here is a small list of places where I saw them:
Mines, boiler rooms, conveyor lines of mining and processing industries, bunkers, cement plants, crushing plants, water tanks, conveyors of distilleries, laboratories...
Whether it’s true or not, that’s what I bought it for and what I’m selling it for - they say they even stood on the tram tracks on steep slopes - to automatically turn on the braking system...

MILITARY AIRCRAFT WATCH

Rarity!!!
If the eyewitness, who is also the victim and the defendant is not lying, then this is the watch from Henkel, shot down in 1942 near Moscow.
He swears that he knocked it down and dug it up himself... I think he’s lying.
These things can be bought online.
SPD with radium, but here’s the paradox - our ’72 releases no longer glow - but these ones are still quite functional... The Germans did it conscientiously...

GAMMA Flaw Detector

Now we got our hands on some very interesting exhibits. The picture shows a gamma flaw detector.
The problem is that in Soviet times they were used anywhere. At that time, it was believed that only the source that was inside was dangerous. But then it turned out that the body of such a flaw detector contains several kilograms of depleted uranium. Different models - different quantities. That is, even if there is no source in the flaw detector, it poses a certain danger and certain actions by the authorities in the event of illegal possession of such a thing. The source inside - depending on the model - is extremely dangerous - death is very likely.
Z.Y. I deliberately do not include a dosimeter in the photos - some people don’t like it, but I can assure you that this flaw detector contains about 10 kg of U-238.
Advice - do not touch it under any circumstances, even if you have a dosimeter - it can simply go off scale and not show real power.

I came home and took out an old watch - it was inherited from the previous owners of the apartment in 2003. All this time they were lying in my sofa, under my head... sometimes I took it out, opened the lid, turned the arrows... wound it up. There was also a wild idea to take it apart and lubricate it, and hang it in front of me at my workplace.

SOVIET WATCH