High Background Radiation Rates - Is This Normal?

[davenn]

Right so why the 2 - 3 Kcpm counts in the OP?

Don gave an answer to that in his first post, he has it on the wrong setting ...

Never mind, I was on the X0.1 scale. But that's still high, isn't it?

Ohhh and auroral activity isn't going to make a detector read anything extra... The aurora is produced by
mostly electrons and some protons being trapped in the Earth's magnetic field

And fortunately, because of our atmosphere's protection, reading a burst of x-rays, when they arrive, several days
before the auroral activity begins is unlikely to occur at ground level either.

 

[gleem]

Don gave an answer to that in his first post, he has it on the wrong setting ...

Looks like the half-life of my memory is about 1 post.

Ohhh and auroral activity isn't going to make a detector read anything extra... The aurora is produced by
mostly electrons and some protons being trapped in the Earth's magnetic field

Admittedly that was a bit of a reach but x-rays and gamma rays are a small component of the radiation, and gammas from neutron activation have been observed and Don's NaI detector is quite sensitive to low-energy x-rays.