On TV...

[bobins]

I was lucky enough to revisit the Chernobyl site in September 2015 and have a tour around the new containment structure. We spent the whole 2 days within the 30km exclusion zone, and most of the daylight hours within the 10km exclusion zone. To put the 'contamination' that we experienced into perspective, these are the doses and dose rates we experienced during our stay : 89 µSv/h Max dose rate, 0.243 µSv/h Average, 7 µSv Accumulated dose. Compare that with the single flight home from Ukraine to UK : 5 µSv/h Max dose rate, 1.457 µSv/h Average dose rate, 8µSv Accumulated dose. We came into relatively close contact to some 'hot particles' whilst there, and were shown the sealed red door to reactor number 4, the Khodemchuk memorial and the circulation pumps to number 3, these areas put various dosimeters into alarm*. So what am I saying ? Well, it's perfectly possible to spend time in the Chernobyl zone these days and get less of a 'total dose' than a flight of a few hours ! I don't know if that makes Chernobyl 'safe' or flying 'dangerous'

* Sending a dosimeter into 'Alarm' very much depends on what the alarm level is set to !!

[elma]

Is that a trip anyone can do Bobins or something work related? I'd love to visit the site, I've been fascinated with it for life. I was very concerned that it was being ignored during the Fukishima disaster but it seems that the engineers were busy working away and the media were tied up elsewhere.

It looks like the site will become much safer over the next decades. The new containment structure is fitted with cranes/arms which will take down the sarcophagus and then disassemble reactor 4. The documentary didn't really say where it was all going, it only got as far as loaded into lorries and taken away. Amazing how far engineering has come since 1986, most of my life I've believed the best solution was to pour neutron saturated concrete over it. Now there are real solutions being implemented that seem very feasible to me. Did you get any pictures Bobins? I would love to see some if you did.

[bobins]

Elma, Tourist trips to Chernobyl are readily available (http://www.tourkiev.com) but I would highly, thoroughly, 100%, definitely, positively recommend your own smaller group tour - max 4 bods. We first visited with a large group of like minded souls in 2007, and whilst we saw a lot, it was a little rushed. Our most recent trip was so much better - it was a very small trip (just the two of us, me and the missus who is really into this) it's a bit more expensive than the standard trip everyone does but the trade-off is that you get more time in areas of interest and you haven't got to constantly stop for the whole group of photographers ! Our recent tour was all above board and signed / regulated / legitimate. There's very little that is 'off limits' - apart from the bleedin' obvious There is actually quite a lot to see - not just the usual tour of Pripyat, there's also the old bio-labs, the unfinished cooling towers (you can re-run your own version of the ending of Gilliam's 'Brazil' ), some of the old remediation equipment (surprisingly 'hot', it pays not to linger......), Chernobyl town, etc, etc. There's a small 'hotel' - I use the term loosely - for visitors in Chernobyl that's perfectly comfortable and serves local fayre <cough> , so if you do a two or more day trip, you don't have to do the slog back to Kiev each night. After the currency conversion the price difference for the 'individuals' tour compared to a group tour was only about £20 in our money anyway. By the far the most expensive part is the flights to Ukraine which you need to set up yourself. The usual arrangement is that you stay in one of the regular hotels in Kiev, then the tour guide picks you up in whatever car he's got for the duration and drives you to site.

PM me if you want more info on how to set up, and the guys we use for the tours...... we could be tempted to go back again, though the view of Number 4 is somewhat obscured now by that damn great dome - whose idea was it to put that in the way ?

I've got photos by the hundred mainly from 2007, but the missus has loads from 2015. I'll dig them out in due course

[elma]

I have to do that, I will PM you shortly. Just settled down to a movie and the PM needs full attention.

Did your pictures come out with all the little blotches radiation causes on film? I'm assuming you used digital cameras and it's not crossed my mind in the past weather the detector on them would do the same thing as film but I assume so.

[CitroJim]

That sounds like a brilliant trip indeed Bobins... I've been following Chernobyl since day one with great interest and remain really fascinated with all the pictures published from time to time. Sadly I can't travel beyond these shores so it'll always be a virtual visit for me...

There's been some very 'interesting' effects on the local vegetation and wildlife though, by all accounts.

Indeed, the amount of radiation one can receive on a flight is quite high and in the early days of Concorde this was a big concern as it flew that much higher... In the end it was a needless concern.

[bobins]

Did your pictures come out with all the little blotches radiation causes on film? I'm assuming you used digital cameras and it's not crossed my mind in the past weather the detector on them would do the same thing as film but I assume so.

Neither our digital images nor the chemical film pictures (from 2007) were affected by radiation, though we weren't subjected to particularly high doses so it's not really surprising. I've seen what high doses will do to both photos and (video) film, so it does cause problems.

This is the Khodemchuk memorial - the 'red door' to number 4 is just behind my right ear when I took this photo
Fellow workers leave small gifts at the memorial - chocolate, cigarettes, etc. For anyone reading this who doesn't know - Khodemchuck was on the reactor floor when it exploded, no trace of him was ever found. Fellow worker Shashenok was found in a corridor immediately after the explosion and implored his rescuers to go and get Khodemchuk, but there was nothing they could do.



Four of the cooling pumps for Unit 3



The new shelter under construction



Power stations in the distance - photo taken from on top of one of the tower blocks



Duga 3 (Woodpecker) over the horizon early warning radar array - yes, it really is very very large
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar

[elma]

Photobucket doesn't seem to be playing ball right now. I'll be checking back in the morning.

Still nothing, is anyone else seeing the pictures? I'm not sure if it's my connection or photos bucket.

[Zelandeth]

James - I've been having trouble with photobucket for a few days, it seems to be co-operating again as of this morning though. Oddly I had the situation where I could access it perfectly from my phone over mobile data, but not via my home broadband connection...so I wonder if something funny had been going on with DNS redirection somewhere...

Here's my TV link for the day...

Series 2 of James May's series "The Reassembler"

Where he sets about (very slowly) reconstructing items from our everyday lives to give an insight into the mysteries of how some bits work and the history behind them - it's a nigh on zero budget show where May basically rambles on about stuff while building things. ...Which is just fine by me to be honest! Has very slight echoes of the Secret Life of Machines series back in the late 80s (back when Channel 4 still aired actual documentary programs rather than mockumentaries claiming to be real...though that hits a particular nerve of mine, which is probably a story (albeit potentially an interesting one) for another time!).

Series 1 saw him rebuild a petrol lawnmower, an old GPO telephone and an electric guitar. This second season sees attention drawn to (his very own) Hornby 00 gauge model train set, a 1960s era Kenwood food mixer, and a Honda Monkey Bike.

Haven't watched them yet, though I did just grab them via Get-iPlayer for a watch later. I enjoyed the first series, so hopefully this one will also be entertaining.

[CitroJim]

I believe he's going to do a Dansette Record Player in this series Zel, or so rumour has it...

Watching him do a 60s vintage autochanger deck will be most interesting A lot of radio engineers were terrified of them back in the day... Not me, I loved them!

I've done a 60s Kenwood food mixer... The one I use several times a week in my own kitchen Best mixer ever... Knocks spots off the modern stuff...

[Zelandeth]

Jim, definitely saw an autochanger of some description in the intro - would have said 70s though from the brief glance we get. Either way, imagine there will be a fair few expletives removed in the edit if it's half as fiddly as the last one I worked on! Not particularly difficult, just fiddly and one of those tasks for which a third (and possibly fourth) hand would have been useful.

...Never did find that one circlip either.

Worth noting I guess that something I have planned for a point in the next year or two is to dust off my YouTube channel with some informative video work to demystify stuff and/or take a trip down memory lane. Inspiration will definitely be getting drawn from the likes of the Reassembler, and of course Tim Hunkin from the Secret Life of Machines series I mentioned earlier - to which I reckon I owe a lot of my interest in electronics and mechanics actually. Not totally sure whether I'll actually get anywhere with it, but that's my plan...Going to need to buy a new PC (or massively upgrade the existing desktop) if I've any hope of doing video editing in a same amount of time...And that's before I've bought the camera and started factoring in the time. Reckoning probably roughly an hour of work per minute of finished article probably as a rough guide...

[bobins]

Mr May will be reassembling a 1963 Dansette Bermuda in the next, and last, episode of series 2 of The Reassembler

[CitroJim]

Mr May will be reassembling a 1963 Dansette Bermuda in the next, and last, episode of series 2 of The Reassembler

Lovely I had one as a kid... In fact it was what got me into electronics in the very beginning when it went bang one day and I watched in fascination it being repaired by a near neighbour ad enthusiast...

What it started off...

[Hell Razor5543]

On More4 (Channel 14 on Freeview) tonight at 21:00 they are showing "Holocaust: Night Will Fall". It is the most harrowing thing I have ever seen. I have watched it twice, and it hurts just as much on the second viewing. When it was shown on Channel 4 they did something I personally have not seen them do before; no advert breaks.

If you decide to watch it I doubt you will have a good night sleep afterwards. You will probably cry. If I had the power to do so, I would require everybody in the World to watch it once. I believe it shows the horrors mankind is capable of inflicting upon itself more vividly than anything else I have seen.

[bobins]

Thank you for posting that up, James. I shall record it and watch in due course.

[Hell Razor5543]

While I was talking to my cousin, she mentioned that her friends' daughter had helped crack Misophonia (the cause, but not, necessarily, a cure). This has been on the BBC yesterday. Here are the links (Olana is the young lady in question);

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38849776
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38842561