Pete Burgess joined the Radiation Metrology Group at the National Radiological Protection Board ( now UKHSA ) in 1975 and has worked subsequently at UKAEA , NPL and Nuvia .

It also doesn ' t bleep . So , a long time ago , manufacturers started to supply “ bleepers ”, simple battery powered units fitted with a Geiger-Muller ( GM )

( Acknowledgement to Vertec Scientific )

tube and a bleep circuit . Every ( typically ) 8 pulses , it would bleep . This helps dose avoidance , provided the wearer listens to it . They are still very useful instruments for many people .

( Welcome Trust image )

Marie and Pierre Curie

In the beginning there was Marie Curie and her husband ' s quadrant electroscope . Charge the electroscope by twisting a quartz crystal , place the latest vial of radium-226 inside and time the movement of a spot of light between two deflections .

Manufacturers tried combining this sort of technology with small moving coil meters , but this didn ' t work well . They were expensive , large , heavy , drained batteries quickly and had a very limited range .

( with permission of Oak Ridge Associated University )

This principle was adopted in the quartz instrument used for the detection of fibre pocket dosemeter , invented by ionising radiation . It is named after Hans

Danish / American physicist Charles Lauritsen . Geiger , who invented the principle in 1908 ,

Again , charge it until the fibre is sitting on and Walther Müller , who collaborated with zero . As the day progresses , you can look Geiger in developing the technique further through it and see what sort of dose you ' ve in 1928 to produce a practical tube that picked up . The weaknesses are that it takes could detect a number of different radiation skill to zero the dosemeter , it ' s not very types . Philips and NRPB , from 1982 sensitive and it could be banged deliberately onwards , developed energy compensation on a hard surface to add " dose ”. filters ( see photo below ) which meant that an electronic dosemeter could produce dosimetrically credible results for many workplaces .

6 Radiation Protection Today www . srp-rpt . uk