I just found this on ebay: watch w/ build in radiation detector.

http://cgi.ebay.com/GammaMaster-Watch-Pe...1QQcmdZViewItem

Honestly: yes I did think about it. It is something that bothers me a great deal whenever we do a suspicious package on the train job. It bothers me becasue I can't see it and for real we are kind of helpless against the exposure. And now on the subject of radiation detectors:

Many companies are trying to cash in on the fear of general public. There are key chains, watches and clip on detectors that you can buy. Are they a real deal? Some of them are but they are not really that sensitive. The scale basically has to settings: 1. nothing 2. you got 30 min or less

Now the real detectors are priced around $1000. Those are pagers and clip ons that richer Fire Dept and agencies have.

This is what my dept is using and I have no confidence in it since I like to test my equipment and I brought it right by an xray machine taking 3 shots. Nothing happened.
http://www.ludlums.com/product/mK8.htm

What I wanted to buy but gave up due to crazy money are either one of those two.
http://www.laurussystems.com/products/mini_rad-d%20gamma_pager.htm

or one designed for ems and first responders:
http://www.raesystems.com/products/gammarae_ii

Now personally I would buy any of the above meters for my own use on the job BUT being on city money I can't afford them. Same stuff goes for other equipment. 12 lead EKG machines for pocket PCs that run close to $2500. Sometimes I wonder who designs all that stuff and who do they target as their customers... People who can benefit from these developments can't afford them.

I recently went to the ER and had to get an X-ray. The tech had a thing on her shirt that I think measured radiation. Would something like that work?

I think those are for the amount of radiation you absorb and not when radiation is detected but I will be in the ER on wed and than I ask one of our techs. Unless of course someone from the forum gets the crack at it first.

At my previous school, I could have nabbed onto an old Civil Defense Radiation monitor with pen monitor, etc. but I left it in place. It got thrown away the next summer by someone who had no idea how valuable it was.

IIRC, Gama rays and X-rays are not the same, exept they overlap in one frequency range. Maybe these detectors are not set to register the X-rays you submitted them to.

(My physics notions are a bit rusty...)

Those dosimeters are designed to register the accumulated amount of Xrays doses received by the wearer.

Depending on what you want to measure, you will need different types of devices : alpha, beta and gamma "rays" are quite different and won't be detected by the same devices.

I think WND's news is generally legit and usually a day or two ahead of the mainstream media in reporting certain things. It is coming from a definite perspective however, and I could see how some of the heavy self-promotion would be offputting. I guess we all need to be diligent about seeking a variety of sources for our news and to take everything WND, CNN, the NY Times, etc. says/writes with a grain of critical salt.

OK, this is a bit complicated, so stick with it.

There's two types of radiation, "ionizing" and "non-ionizing". Ionizing radiation is the Bad Stuff that literally alters the atomic structure of the materials it's hitting, making it radioactive as well. These radiations come in various flavors. You also have gamma, alpha and beta radiation, which are just different terms for types of radiation.
When you have a radiation detector, you're looking for your ionizing radiation, stuff that's emiting and altering the stuff around it. X-Rays, while harmful (they will burn you and can cause cancers) are NOT the sirt of radiation that these radiation detectors are looking for, because they are not the same kind of rays that would emit from a source of radiation. basically, with X-Rays, you take away the energy, the radiation stops. With a true radio active source, the plutonium, the radium, the uranium IS the source of the energy and the fission byproducts are the radioactivity.

It's more complicated than that, but suffice it to say that an x-ray won't annoy a radiation detector. If you want to test it, find a nice big granite wall somewhere and put it right up against it. You'll get a "hit" from that in many places, because Granite (and many other rocks) are naturally radioactive to a degree.

Info about radiation types:

Alpha: Wikipedia Article

Beta: NRC Article

Gamma: Wikipedia article

There's more I'd like to say, but until I can find the documentation to support what I think I remember, I'll wait.

Matt

The next time you are at the hospital with afew minutes to spare, go to Nuclear Medicine (probably somewhere in x-ray). They will have multiple Gamma sources and Geiger counters, this will give you some idea of the sensitivity of you personal detector.

The radiation monitors usually worn in medicine are either film badges or occasionally "crystal" rings (retrospective - they tell you how much radiation exposure you had LAST month).

X-ray machines would NOT cause detection by a Gamma detector - different type of radiation