I thought that I would be able to find enough people to take more than what there was - but I was wrong, and we ended up with some left over. We were caught with more than we could handle as a group, but a company in the US agreed to take any that were left over. Since they are a business organization they planned to sell them and make a profit, but still at a very reasonable price. However, they agreed that I could still arrange for members of our group to get them for the above price.

If you want to get one from them let me know at survival@webpal.org

I will then tell you how to get one from them as agreed. If they run out of them or they become no longer available under this arrangement, then let me know and I will remove this message. As I say, it is a very good deal. I already have lots of equipment that I spent a lot more money for, and I now have other equipment priorities or I would have gotten them for our own group.

The two bigger devices are Canadian IM 108/pd. Radiation Meters designed for use in a Nuclear War situation. The two middle sized units are PP 5120 / PD Chargers. The ten smaller items are the dosimeters. Most likely they will be a 600R IM 5013/PD but you could receive a more "expensive" model. Something I will discuss under their individual picture. All the models work on the same principle and will equally well do the job.

The key to this whole program was the dosimeters. We got the dosimeters so cheap because while lower rate ones are priced at $185 each no one sees any use for the higher rate ones because they don't believe there will be a nuclear war. Once in a while there may be a "more expensive" lower rate one in one of the kits. It happens on a random basis. It will work just as well and if it happens to you - then you just got an exceptionally good deal.

The key is to keep track of a person's exposure.

Your comments that "300R means 50% chance of fatality is expected," is probably a bit on the pessimistic side but not hugely erroneous. It is interesting to note that serious cases of epilation (hair loss) usually occur in this range.

Your reference to 150R being "about the same as 300R only about one-quarter will die," is seriously off base. I quote from Gladstone's The Effects of Nuclear Weapons - 1977": "A whole-body dose in the range of 100 to 200 rems will result in a certain amount of illness, but it will rarely be fatal." Every responsible reference work I have studied -- including medical radiological texts -- gives similar dose-related symptomology. X-ray and gamma dosimetry is widely understood and has been the subject of research since the early part of this century.

Your reference to 50R causing "lots of sickness, and radiation sickness is pretty terrible. (Think of cancer treatment without pain killers.) Lots of vomiting - hair falling out -- and all that. Not nice," is simply grossly incorrect. Doses of 50R are widely known to be in essentially subclinical range. Blood changes may occur, but illness will not be felt by virtually any subjects. Again your claim that doses of 30R will cause, "Most everyone (to) feel some serious sickness -- below that -- maybe just "punky." is absurd. Blood tests would be required to notice any near-term effects of such a low acute dose.

Naturally I am referring to acute doses and near-term effects. Any of these smaller doses may increase -- rather slightly -- the statistical likelihood of certain long-term disease. The greatest, and IMHO least recognized dangers of low dose exposures (in Civil Defense context) is in the area of inhalation and ingestion of alpha and beta emitters.
end of this comment by Doc]

[Response by Bruce -
I am in agreement, with most everything that you have said, but hope that you are wrong on the last paragraph. There is a radiological defense technique to combat or at least minimize the threat of inhalation of particles in the air stream, and that is to hang a damp bed sheet for the air to pass through in the air intake. Years ago we worried about one micron filters, but Cresson Kearney says that is not necessary and he probably had the most experimental experience of anyone.

My mortality figures too come from standard radiological literature, and I have admittedly used the more conservative figures, not that I am trying to unnecessarily threaten people about the nuclear hazard, or to present an overstatement of the hazard, but because the views that I have stated are so broadly held I do not want to play them down or have people think that I am not aware of the concerns. The Physicians for Social Responsibility would not agree with either of our figures. They would point out that lack of available medical care, increased biological hazards because of breakdown of health infrastructure systems, and weakened immune systems because of radiation exposure would make my estimates overly optimistic.

I receive considerable critique from people at the other extreme. Putting aside those who are simply emotional and not truly knowledgeable in the field, this week I followed through on one critique by a young person (young to me) who has never-the-less been employed in the field of calibrating this equipment for the last 20 years. This fellow felt that I was not being nearly conservative enough. As a follow up I managed to talk to an Instructor, with 23 years on the job at Mt. Weather, the location where Congress and many of Washington higher-ups are assigned to go in case of nuclear attack. I was shocked to learn that he also thought only in "civilian standards". I guess that I am in sort of a middle ground. My inclination is to side completely with your position, but politically and from a PR point of view it is a necessity that I speak from where I do.

In the final analysis, fatality is probabilistic, somewhat like car accident fatalities. There have been cases of people getting very much higher radiation and surviving, and others with much lower who have not. Cause and effect become clouded when working with probability issues. I recommend that people learn more about radiation by studying:

end of Bruce's response as to the effects of radiation]

[Comment by "Doc"
You commit the classic mistake of showing the dosimeter worn in the shirt's pen pocket. It is a little known fact that Civil Defense dosimeters are designed to be worn at waist level. This makes sense if one considers the inverse square law of radiation exposure.]

[Response by Bruce-
Yes, of course, you are absolutely correct.]

Also, if ten or a hundred people are together or going somewhere, only one or two of them need to wear a dosimeter. So long as they all stay together, the radiation dosage that one gets will be what they all get. It is nice to have two or three, so that you can use one to check the other and make sure that they are working.

The whole idea is to keep a record of each person's exposure. If someone has gotten 10R and someone else hasn't then perhaps let the other person do the task that has to be done outside, such as carrying out the human waste, or clearing an air vent.

Children and women of child bearing age are usually exempted, because radiation is exceptionally harmful to them.

Years ago I bought civilian Bendix kits, that had the exact same device in them, but I am told not built to the same high battle standards. We only had two devices in the kit needing charged. Here you have 10 dosimeters to be charged. Enough to split up in two groups if you wanted to, and in this way each group would have a charger.

The little chain has the lens cap dangling off it. This is what you use, when you aren't using the charger, to cover the hole that you look down through with the dosimeter to charge the dosimeter.

[Comment by "Doc" -
By the way, though you don't address this, one should never use the charger to read a dosimeter's reading. By doing this, you run the risk of pressing down too hard on the dosimeter and wiping away the reading!]

[Response by Bruce -
Excellent point. I knew that! Sorry, I missed it. That is important.]

You don't have to zero a dosimeter every time someone uses one. This is because their measure is cumulative. One person might go out with a dosimeter and get an exposure of 15 rems (Radioactive Equivalent Man) and then another person could take it and go out and come back having it read 25. This would mean that the second person got 10 rems.

[Comment by "Doc"-
You should always re-zero a dosimeter when someone else uses it. Everyone should ideally have their own dosimeter and daily (or hourly) written records of their dose, but in the stress and confusion of a war situation mistakes are even more likely if people go about sharing dosimeters and trying to sort out doses subsequently. Additionally, virtually all dosimeter manufacturers recommend that dosimeters be re-zeroed long before they reach maximum scale for better accuracy.]

[Response by Bruce -
All good points.]

One other point. Dosimeters 'drift'. Some will hold their charges for days, but others will start to drift after a couple of days. It is best to check out your dosimeters ahead of time, so you know how the ones that you own hold their charge. No need to get shook, just because your dosimeter has drifted.

[Comment by "Doc" -
though everyone should avoid any radiation exposure if possible, you state that someone exposed to 50R is "going to be very sick in one hour." Nope. Even at 500R you won't be dead in an hour. At 500R you may have signed your death warrant, but it will be days (or more likely weeks) before it's served. ]

[Response by Bruce -
Yes, I agree that I have stated the case poorly. Sort of -"You are dead - go get yourself buried." But you are right. Burial may not be necessary for a few days or a few weeks. In the interim you will just wish that you were dead. As I tell people in my book You Will Survive Doomsday- They WILL survive doomsday, but perhaps not Doomsweek, Doomsmonth, or Doomsyear.]

This is the ideal meter to have during a nuclear war. I am not aware of anything similar being built for the civilian market. Civilian peace time standards are so low (that is low R - in another sense they are so high - meaning that you are permitted to receive so little radiation) that any meters built today for peace time use are practically useless under wartime conditions.

The reason you want two, is to make sure one is working. Three would be even better. That way you could take a "vote" between them to decide which one wasn't working. But with two, just always believe the worst case. In fact, I highly recommend that you multiply by 4 what shows on the scale. The ionization chamber in these things grow tired over the years. We have tested them and that is what we have found to be the usual ratio. NO PROBLEM. Knowing that fact still gives you complete confidence in them. You just have to do the multiplication.

The actual numbers are not that important. Knowing the presence of radiation is. Knowing whether it is increasing or decreasing is important. From that point on a general feeling of range will be sufficient. If there is radiation that this unit is detecting - you need to be in shelter.

[Comment by "Doc". -
Your experience with these ion chamber units is different from mine. I have the Admiral units and the American CD V-715s which are similar and (both) measure up to 500 R/hr. Generally, they are reasonably accurate right from the surplus stocks. In any case, your suggestion that one "multiply by 4 what shows on the scale" is simply dangerous. The whole purpose of having measurement equipment is to measure! One may have to perform dangerous or lifesaving tasks in the aftermath of catastrophe and knowing the dose rate is vital. Guesswork is totally out of place. What you want to do is make sure that your meter passes all of its operational checks, then send it to a licensed "hot lab" for calibration. The charge for this is only around $40 to $75 and then you'll know what you are dealing with. It's cheap insurance and makes a lot more sense than staring at a bank of untested ancient meters and guessing the results. Yes, have two meters but have both of them tested and calibrated. ]

[Response by Bruce - All great suggestions. However, I am taking what I consider to be a very conservative approach here. The fact is that we are sampling the units and are finding them to be in excellent condition. However, you are absolutely correct, every unit should be individually calibrated. But, you can see what it does to our cost. Therefore I have sought to solve the problem by redundancy. I think this is a good solution because it gets the equipment, with a substantial degree of reliability, into the hands of many, many people who would not have it otherwise. The following are some comments sent to me by another observer.]

[Comments by another knowledgeable observer -
Yes, I agree that there will probably be a nuclear exchange or accident in the future. That's probably why I bought dozens of surplus radiation equipment on eBay this past 6 months. I have dosimeters, chargers, CDV-715's, 700's, 710's. They are all the yellow Civil Defense types made by Victoreen, Lander, Frary & Clark, Anton, etc. I figure that they will go up in value when there is a nuclear threat.

If you are going to buy this package, be sure that you check to be sure that they are all in working condition. Some of the dosimeters become leaky and won't hold a charge for more than a few minutes or hours. That makes them worthless as a radiation indicator.]

[Response by Bruce-

We did sample testing. We found about 3% to fail. That is actually a very good reliability rate. It means that one person in three or four persons receiving the package should find one that is not good. Since each package contains ten, with that high rate of redundancy the problem should be more than adequately covered.]

[Continued comments by the other knowledgeable observer -
The high range units would be useful for a close range nuclear incident or attack. They often (more often then not) have problems zeroing especially on the lowest ranges. They are extremely high impedance circuits and any moisture, fingerprints, etc. on the circuit board will cause them to mis-read. On the units that I have there is a "Circuit Check" position. The meter should rise to the "circuit check" area on the meter scale. There is a "Zero" position and "Zero control" The "Zero Control" should be able to zero the meter when in that position. ]

[Response by Bruce -
Exactly. And exactly how the rate meters in the package work. You will therefore be able to check your own meters electrically. And you should do so immediately. Both for assurance and the practice of using them and making sure they are ready. We have sampled them radiologically, and find very few that are defective. Once again I have recommended a conservative factor of multiplying by four, based upon our experience, to assure safety. As you have seen, some disagree with this procedure. We have also gotten around the problem of their not being individually calibrated, by providing you with redundancy.]

[Continued comments by the other knowledgeable observer -
Then turn the switch to each of the 4 scales and it should zero on each scale (if the meter is in great shape). It will likely not zero on all scales. That is the trouble with these old Civil Defense meters. So it is best to write first to be sure that the meters and dosimeters can meet these tests. The dosimeter chargers are usually very erratic (that type is). They will eventually be able to zero the dosimeters, but you have to fiddle with it for awhile.]

[Response by Bruce -
You do not have the first problem with the rate meters in this package, because they only have one scale, which does make them more reliable. Moreover, as a very knowledge and extremely experienced friend of mine, who managed their production, stated - they are built like a tank. And as "Doc" comments, he finds them highly reliable. I am the one that is conservative about their use with my "formula or multiply by 4". We are getting the "black" rather than the "gold" chargers which are considered much more reliable, but still, yes, charging can take some fiddling.]

The advantage of the rate meters in the package is that they tell you IMMEDIATELY. A dosimeter will measure the same rate - but it takes it an hour. In other words, if the rate was 50R per hour (because that is what this measures - the rate per hour) this would tell you right away but with a dosimeter you would have to wait an hour for it to have received and display the 50R dose.

You may notice that I am carrying the meter at about waist height. That is because that is where they are designed to be used. Higher or lower and they will give a misreading. A person's vital organs are at that height and that is what is essential. Lower down you will get a lot more radiation. It is especially bad for small children, because they are so short. And you CERTAINLY don't want to sleep on the ground, even when the radiation measures very low, because you will get a full body exposure if you do.

The probe on the one unit is particularly useful because one can cover it with a condom and immerse it in food or liquids like water. Because the instrument is so sensitive it can detect whether or not the food is safe for consumption. I would like very much to have included an instrument like this in the package but the cheapest that I can find THAT WORK are usually several hundred dollars and I have no idea as to where to find a thousand even if people were willing to spend that kind of money. The new modern one that I admire costs $2500. As I say - I admire it, but I don't own one.

[Critique by "Doc"
Here's a few notes regarding equipment. If you can, find a CD V700 model 6a by Victoreen. This is probably the best of the CD V700 series and parts are still fairly easy to come by. The Victoreen 6b would be my second choice. I have several of these meters and while they are pretty good for 40 year-old devices, they really aren't all that sensitive by contemporary standards. Having said that, those that are working properly and correctly calibrated are very accurate within their range.

Also, remember that the Geiger-Mueller tube is a consumable component. It has a filament -- just like a light bulb -- and will burn out in time. It's good to keep a spare.

It is not correct to say that the proper position to carry the CD V700 is at waist level, though this is true for the high level ion chamber machines. The sensitive Geiger counters are to be used for post-attack decontamination (and training) and one should use the probe close to the surface of whatever one is inspecting.

The 710B requires odd batteries which are expensive and difficult to find (Radio Shack can get them). Also, it is not very accurate at its lower range. Better to get the Admirals you refer to or the American CD V715 or CD V717 (with remote probe capability). I see these all over the Internet for $40 - $60 and they all use a single D cell.

One thing that is very important to know about the CD V700s and most other true Geiger counters is that the device can/will "saturate" in a high level radiation field and give a FALSE ZERO!!! Never rely on a GM type counter to measure war radiation levels.

[Comment by Bruce - that is true that Geiger counters are better used for close up work, and not in high radiation Nuclear War situations. Their use would be best left to the "recovery" period a couple of weeks later. And I have to admit, that I used a poor example in showing these being used at waist level height. That principle applies to the rate meters being provided in the package.]

What I have shown you here is about defense. Not about destruction. The military is about destruction - not about defense. The package that we are talking about can truly save your life and the lives of many others because of the knowledge that you will have using it and the advice you can give them.

Radiation is tasteless, soundless, and invisible. Only with the these tools can you save peoples lives from it. The instruments that you have in the package are completely adequate, in fact ideal, for use during a war. You need more afterwards, like I have been showing you, during the recovery period, but what is in the package is wonderful. They cost the government thousands of dollars. I just wish everyone would take advantage of the opportunity that we now have.