Look at what I found

[SunSamurai]

Is that story real?



That's just full of BS!

What? I find vials of radioactive material in my clocks all the time!

 

[lxskllr]

I found a vial of some kind of radioactive stuff on the side of a road once. It was in a lead lined tube. It was for medical purposes, but I don't remember what. I just left it there; not something I really need laying around.

 

[Locut0s]

I found a vial of some kind of radioactive stuff on the side of a road once. It was in a lead lined tube. It was for medical purposes, but I don't remember what. I just left it there; not something I really need laying around.

Good call I read a story of someone who died after coming into contact with a lethal dose of radioactive medical waste. I can't remember it very well but I believe the owner of a scrap metal facility found a canister or the whole machine and removed the radioactive material. If I remember right he removed the caesium inside, though it looked like pretty metal and made it into trinkets for one of his children. The child died from lethal exposure to radiation.

 

[Ruptga]

those kits were awesome!

Too bad they are impossible to find nowadays. Kids just don't care anymore i guess :/

You mean something like this?

 

[Red Squirrel]

There's a room in the basement at the hospital where I work that has a big radio active sign on it. Every time I pass by it, it's so tempting to check it out. Ironicly the morgue is only a few doors down. Been in there a few times, you can put a serious amount of bulk ice cream in those freezers and they have very nice sliding trays.

 

[Ruptga]

Good call I read a story of someone who died after coming into contact with a lethal dose of radioactive medical waste. I can't remember it very well but I believe the owner of a scrap metal facility found a canister or the whole machine and removed the radioactive material. If I remember right he removed the caesium inside, though it looked like pretty metal and made it into trinkets for one of his children. The child died from lethal exposure to radiation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

 

[Locut0s]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

Ahh yes thanks for that. Well looks like I was pretty far off the mark on most of the story but pits and pieces were right. And 4 people died!

 

[The J]

One of the best Christmas presents I got as a kid was a Heathkit shortwave radio kit.

A few months ago my dad found a few Heathkit boxes in my grandpa's house. It turns out that they are the multimeter and 5MHz oscilloscope kits that were used in at-home electronics repair courses. My dad gave them to me and they were never opened until I got to them. The kits are dated from 1975 and everything, including the CRT for the oscilloscope, is still intact.

I'm slowly putting the multimeter together. I haven't made much progress due to the holidays, though.

 

[novasatori]

Cool kits, I got a really inexpensive cardboard one for Christmas a long time ago, but I never really used it much.

I did just pick up an Electronic Learning Lab from Radio Shack on sale with free shipping a couple weeks ago.

 

[Rubycon]

What? I find vials of radioactive material in my clocks all the time!

This part in particular:

"he noticed that his Geiger counter went wild as he passed Gloria’s Resale Boutique/Antique."

Not going to happen. Ra226 is predominately an alpha emitter. This would be stopped by the vial's walls. Gamma is emitted as well which can travel perhaps a meter. It definitely would NOT be picked up by a GM counter, particularly the CD models (the yellow ones) that people get off ebay for a few dollars.

The story is full of holes. The Thorium and Americium bits were laughable as well. Anyone with basic radiation knowledge could tell you that it's beyond being stretched.

 

[geno]

I used to have a really nice one back when I was younger. Considering fundamental electronics isn't my strong point, I'd love to have one today to brush up on some of the basics

 

[HalfCrazy]

Remembered playing with this at my grandparent's as a kid, so I dug it out today while I was up there for Christmas. It's in better shape than I was expecting, looks like the board is missing two capacitors, but otherwise it's in tact. And it still has the manual with all the different circuits that can be built.



Think I know what I'm going to be playing with tonight.

lmao.. I had the very same one when I was younger. After a while, I was able to come up with few of my own gadgets.

 

[pontifex]

my uncle got me something similar one year. not sure what happened to it. this was probably in th0 early 90s though.

 

[venkman]

Shocking find.

I'm sure he gt a charge out of finding it.

 

[BoomerD]

This part in particular:

"he noticed that his Geiger counter went wild as he passed Gloria’s Resale Boutique/Antique."

Not going to happen. Ra226 is predominately an alpha emitter. This would be stopped by the vial's walls. Gamma is emitted as well which can travel perhaps a meter. It definitely would NOT be picked up by a GM counter, particularly the CD models (the yellow ones) that people get off ebay for a few dollars.

The story is full of holes. The Thorium and Americium bits were laughable as well. Anyone with basic radiation knowledge could tell you that it's beyond being stretched.

Damn...just like a geek...finding holes in an otherwise perfectly fun story!


I had a similar electronics kit back in the mid-60's when transformers were about the size of a dime. Still MUCH more compact than the vacuum tubes that were still very common in tv's and radios.
It wasn't made out of a nice piece of formed plastic though...IIRC, the board was something like masonite with holes in it and diagrams drawn on the "shiny" surface.

 

[lxskllr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

Nasty!

I wonder what it was I found. The vial I found was meant to be easily opened, so I doubt it was as radioactive as that. I'm curious as to what it was now....

 

[bobdole369]

Envy. A bunch of unbuilt Heathkits...... Lots of folks would pay a lot of money for those. Even built they are worth more than the sticker price.

A few months ago my dad found a few Heathkit boxes in my grandpa's house. It turns out that they are the multimeter and 5MHz oscilloscope kits that were used in at-home electronics repair courses. My dad gave them to me and they were never opened until I got to them. The kits are dated from 1975 and everything, including the CRT for the oscilloscope, is still intact.

I'm slowly putting the multimeter together. I haven't made much progress due to the holidays, though.

 

[crab]

A few months ago my dad found a few Heathkit boxes in my grandpa's house. It turns out that they are the multimeter and 5MHz oscilloscope kits that were used in at-home electronics repair courses. My dad gave them to me and they were never opened until I got to them. The kits are dated from 1975 and everything, including the CRT for the oscilloscope, is still intact.

I'm slowly putting the multimeter together. I haven't made much progress due to the holidays, though.

More pics? Pretty sweet find.

 

[MovingTarget]

Wow, those bring back memories. I still have the radio I made from one of those kits around the attic somewhere.

 

[Cogman]

Man, I had three of those kits. Little did I know that it would give me a HUGE head start as a computer engineer.

 

[Evadman]

Haha I have one of those in my crawlspace collecting dust right now, actually.

Man I used to play with that thing all the time as a kid. Mine is a different model though. I remember making a crystal radio, I pretty much knew it off by heart too. I had also made a radio transmitter that could override existing radio stations within a certain radius (probably only about the whole house). Fun times.

That is the exact one I have.

 

[Q]

What did those things do?

 

[Rubycon]

What did those things do?

They were experimenter boxes. Discrete electronic components were mounted to a cardboard workspace and their leads connected to springs. The springs allowed the experimenter to connect wires to other components in point to point fashion. This allowed for a wide variety of simple electronic circuits to be built. These were good to teach the fundamentals of basic electronics. Lots of fun for those interested in such things. This was much more fun to me in my youth than playing with boring dolls.

 

[waggy]

ohh i had one of the 200 in one kits. i loved that thing.

 

[Locut0s]

They were experimenter boxes. Discrete electronic components were mounted to a cardboard workspace and their leads connected to springs. The springs allowed the experimenter to connect wires to other components in point to point fashion. This allowed for a wide variety of simple electronic circuits to be built. These were good to teach the fundamentals of basic electronics. Lots of fun for those interested in such things. This was much more fun to me in my youth than playing with boring dolls.

Yeah I had fun with just such a set but I was too young at the time to appreciate what how much inventive fun could be had with it. I wasn't disciplined enough yet to actually sit down and quietly learn what I was doing. As a result I ended up frying a few of the components. I can remember a diode popping like popcorn and a few of those wires melting and turning red hot. lol. I should go back to it now that I'm grown up and really learn that stuff! Electronics has always been something I wanted to get into but never did.

One annoying this with those sets is that just like with puzzles you end up loosing 1/2 those wires over time. Luckily unlike puzzle pieces they are easy to replace.