Good to have people with nuclear and physics background. That helps with creadability, and allows more people to test and validate accuracy and reliability of the device.

Units #11000070 and #11000063 checking in from Zurich, Switzerland.

Anyway, my name is Witek and I am from Switzerland.

I was born in Poland, and lived there for 25 years. I was actually 5 months old and lived close to German/Poland border in 1986, when Charnobyl disaster happened. Eventually I studied theoretical physics, and computer science. I am big fan of nuclear energy, and research in fission and fussion reactors. And history of nuclear weapons and civial energy use. I worked a little with radioactive materials and radiation during my studies, and have few friends which are more involded in nuclear physics than me.

Right now I live in Zurich, Switzerland, and work as a software and system engingeer here for a software/internet company. In free time I do electronics and stuff.

Joined the network, to experiment a bit more with radiation monitoring, educate myself about background radiation and its variation across space and time. 🙂 And to help build a better network coverage. It is beneficial for everybody to grow the network around the world. There were no units in Switzerland at the time, so ordered the units. And now they are online. It looks now there are some units in Switzerland, but I am the only one in Zurich for now.

There is lots of Nuclear reactor facilities nearby, in Switzerland (power plants mostly; 5 commerical ones still operating, and few more decommisioned or for research), France (a lot) and Germany (also a lot). But also lots of research and medical facilities (like CERN close to Geneva) dealing with radiation. So this is kind of nice crowdsourced early detection system, which in some situations could be more reliable, faster and trustworthy than goverment issued data.

The closest nuclear power plants, is a Kernkraftwerk Beznau about 100 km from Zurich. It have two reactors, 365 MW each. It is a PWR design from the middle of 60s, with power plants started in 1969 for first reactor, and 1972 for second reactor. So this thing is old in its core design.

Swiss federal goverment decided between 2011 and 2013 (after Fukushima disaster) to phase out nuclear power in Switzerland. (Switzerland is using and even selling a lot of hydro electric power). First power plant will be shut down in 2019, and the last in 2034. So, this things are getting older and older, and as much as I like nuclear power plants, these things are not perfectly safe. I think number of small and medium accidents with them will grow over time.

My plan is to write some local software to do some local data monitoring, even if internet or uradmonitor servers are out. And do some fancy analysis maybe on them, and send notifcation about significant changes in the data. Maybe get some more types of sensors and create some environmental monitoring station too, for home or outside.

Radhoo was very helpful with setting up and fixing one of my units. I really like this project.

Chears,
Witek

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by movax.