I was just reading about higher than 'normal' levels at Billings Montana, as reported by Bob Nichols at http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/10/17/your-radiation-this-week-no-26/. (my interpretation of the article is below). The question I have here is why I don't see all the EPA gamma sites on Netc members map. There is an EPA gamma site at Billings (and another at Boise Idaho), but on the Netc map I only see the 1:series member sites at these locations, not the 5:series Gamma sites that I see elsewhere. Is this done to save disk space or map clutter, or am I doing something wrong?

As for the VeteransToday article, Mr. Nichols has fallen into the Scintillation vs. Geiger trap. He is saying the EPA levels are 392 times normal, and even provides references, but the EPA gamma levels are from scintillation counters and the normal expected background he cites is for Geiger tubes (the same reason Netc hides the gamma counts on the public map). There does seem to be a gamma fluctuation this month, but it's not unusual when compared to the 5 year graphs.

The Idaho station is working as of this post. The Billings MT station has been down since 10/16/2015 so you need to go to the inactive sites and you will see the same data I saw.
Harlan

Thanks for the clarification. Now I see Billings MT 5: Gamma site is back online. The graph shows the tell-tale straight line across the area it was not reporting values. Now that it's visible again, the Gamma spikes earlier this month are visible (some 25% increases on 4 separate days).

In Boise I see the 1: Netc station is visible but not the 5: EPA Gamma one. I guess it's offline again.

Harlan, I have to say I really appreciate how you've made this site so easy to use.

We posts "Alert sites" on the webpage, at the bottom is a link to the EPA stations that are offline.

Hi. I am the Billings NETC station. I was just told about station 811 being back online after a few days. It is now reading approx 400 cpm less than it's long-term average. If the equipment has been fixed, then it is all good. If the readings have been "fixed", then it is not good. My EPA RadNet clone is almost done and going into testing phase within the month. It utilizes a 63mm NaTl crystal detector within a particulate filter system. It is a 2/3 scale model of the detectors used by EPA. While it will not read as high as the EPA models, theoretically it should demonstrate the same curves. In addition, I will be able to compare all 10 bands just like the EPA. Will be interesting to see how my readings compare.

Impressive, all 10 channels... nice!