Radioactive Boy Scout Rides Again

[W1UJR]

At least they didn't say he was a ham. 


From --> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292111,00.html

'Radioactive Boy Scout' Charged in Smoke Detector Theft



A man who became the subject of a book called "The Radioactive Boy Scout" after trying to build a nuclear reactor in a shed as a teenager has been charged with stealing 16 smoke detectors. Police say it was a possible effort to experiment with radioactive materials.
David Hahn, 31, was being held Friday on a $5,000 bond in the Macomb County Jail after he was arraigned Thursday on felony larceny charges. Clinton Township police Capt. Richard Maierle said Hahn denied the charges.

A district court clerk on Friday said Hahn did not have an attorney. The Associated Press called the jail in an effort to speak to Hahn, but a sheriff's spokesman said the jail does not give messages to inmates. His preliminary examination was scheduled for Aug. 13.

Investigators say Hahn was arrested Wednesday after a maintenance worker saw him stealing a detector from a ceiling in an apartment complex where he lived. They later found the other detectors in his apartment in the Detroit suburb of Clinton Township.

Police say that Hahn's face was covered with open sores, possibly from constant exposure to radioactive materials.

Hahn learned that a small amount of a radioactive isotope could be found in smoke detectors during his experiments in the 1990s, according to a 1998 article in Harper's Magazine that later expanded into a book by journalist Ken Silverstein.

Maierle said his department evacuated the apartment complex and called the state police bomb squad, which found no hazardous materials.

He said officials learned in January that Hahn had returned to the area after serving in the U.S. Navy.

"Because of his past, we were a tad bit concerned," he said, adding his department alerted the FBI when they found out he was back in Michigan. "We didn't want any other radioactive sites to pop up."

Hahn's first brush with authorities came in August 1994, after police stopped him during an investigation into neighborhood tire thefts. Officers found radioactive materials, chemicals, rocks, plastic and glass bottles and two exploded pipes in his car, Maierle said.

In a subsequent interview with a state health official, Hahn said he had been trying to produce energy and hoped it would help him earn his Eagle Scout badge, according to the Harper's article. Hahn also acknowledged having a backyard laboratory in a potting shed at his mother's home in Oakland County's Commerce Township, the article said.

Authorities declared the structure a hazardous materials site and sealed it. Crews from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency led a Superfund cleanup in 2005 that included dismantling the shed and shipping its remains to be buried at a low-level radioactive waste site in Utah, the article said.

Hahn received a Scouting merit badge for atomic energy in 1991, the article said.

Maierle said Hahn's 1994 arrest was expunged in 1996. His arrest this week was reported by The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens.


Link to the Harper's article --> http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

The book --> http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812966602&view=quotes

[Tom WA3KLR]

Some people never learn.  I think his brain is really fried this time, in my opinion.

[kf6pqt]

Or, he's selling the americium isotope from the smoke detectors to terrorists to pay for his meth habit, by the looks of the guy.

[AF9J]

Eeewww!!! What an idiot he is!

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

He needs help.  Why isn't he getting it?  I don't mean a radioactive Elmer, either.  He's a messed up kid, and he's destroying himelf.  Parents can have their kids taken away if they whack them in the behind when they misbehave in a supermarket - and this is OK?  It's gross negligence.

[John K5PRO]

He does have the appearance and possibly the disposition of a meth head. If he hasn't learned his lesson in 1994 when he messed up his mommy's shed, then there is something wrong in that man. Taking apart smoke detectors is really dangerous, as he appears to already know. But to repeatedly collect them, yep, he's got a bigger plan somewhere. I read the book few years ago, amazing how far he took it. He didn't know better, but he was following the path of the 1938 experiments of Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn, although not using scientific methodologies. That work led to the understanding of nuclear fission - not fish'in.

[W1UJR]

Not so sure about meth...
The article mentioned that the open sores on his face may be the result of exposure to radiation. When you read the Harper's article, you'll be shocked at how and what he cooked up in his parents garden shed, I can just imagine that aerosols which he inhaled, or materials absorbed though cuts in the skin.

Of course, how many of us exposed ourselves to dumb and even downright dangerous stuff during our early entry into radio? I recall, as a child, playing with mercury from old thermostats, drawing arcs with screwdrivers off the flyback transformers in old TV sets, breaking open CRTs and getting phosphor on my hands while I dissected the inner structure. Or the best one, when I tried to strip a 120 VAC line cord with my teeth, only to painfully discover that it was plugged in to the wall. With age comes wisdom...or so we hope.

It's really a shame, seems like a bright kid, very motivated to discover science, just took the wrong turn.

I ordered the book, found the entire story sad, but fascinating.


73 Bruce W1UJR

[W3SLK]

Bruce said:

The article mentioned that the open sores on his face may be the result of exposure to radiation. When you read the Harper's article, you'll be shocked at how and what he cooked up in his parents garden shed, I can just imagine that aerosols which he inhaled, or materials absorbed though cuts in the skin.

That was mandatory reading for our HAZMAT team. Letting us know that you never know what you may find. Some people have addictions; drugs, alcohol, radioactive isotopes. Me, I'm addicted to transmitters that have big fat transmitting tubes, crinkle paint, and lots of meters

[John K5PRO]

I remember a book in the town library when I was a kid, which I checked out regularly. It told me a lot about spark transmitters and wireless. This was, mind you, in the 1960s. One of the experiments which was proposed in the book, was building one's own X-ray machine, using a large clear lightbulb and aluminum foil for the target, glued to the outside of the bulb. I have no idea how effective it was, but it did make a nice plasma globe when driven off an ignition coil and vibrator. Once I learned about tesla coils, though, I headed in that direction. Amazing I wasn't electrocuted, but luckily all my experiments contacted the secondary (RF) side. Ouch.

I have always been fascinated by radioactivity but not enough to want to transmute elements in my garage. With my GM counter, occasionally I find 'interesting' specimens of rock around old mines. Not the sort of stuff I would cozy up to or carry in my pocket! Working at a particle factory (w/energetic protons and neutrons), I am familiar with radiologically-activated materials. Some of my RF amplifiers get hot enough that they must be maintained carefully, nothing goes into the common trash (even dead tubes).

[W1RKW]

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html