Background radiation on my travels

[Sesselmann]

Hi all,

Some of you might be aware that I am on vacation in Europe at the moment and although I am technically not here on business, I carry my Atom-Swift personal dosimeter in my pocket. https://www.gammaspectacular.com/blue/g ... atom-swift

I have its threshold set to 500 nSv. but every now and then the alarm goes off in my pocket, once or twice walking past hospitals, where I assume they are using CT scanners, and once in Norway while looking at large impressive granite sculptures in the Vigelands park.

Rather more interesting was on the ship from Oslo to Copenhagen somewhere in the middle of the ocean when background level dropped to 7 nSv. which is about 1/10 normal background (better than a lead shield).

lowest-background

Another interesting experiment was measuring background on a flight from Oslo to Paris. This is essentially the same experiment Victor Hess performed around 1913 and just as he discovered, background radiation initially falls as the plane takes off, and falls quite low, but then it starts increasing and eventually stabilises around 5-6 times background on the ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Francis_Hess

inflight background

Airport security gave me quite a bit of trouble when I asked them not to put the dosimeter through the baggage scanner 🤣

Next time I fly I would like to bring a gamma spectrometer and check if there are any peaks in the high altitude background.

Steven