I had posted a question about anyone using an MAW-1 on the air, and Brian KN4R sent me an email, reminding me about the radium on the front of the rig.  That got my interest peaked, so did a little research about radium and radiation, and about a good inexpensive Geiger counter to get.  I bought a GC 300-S from Amazon as I had a bunch of points that made it less expensive, and set about checking things.  The background radiation was normal evern for NC known for uranium in the ground everywhere and RADON gas., then tried the MAW-1 front panel.  Yikes!  The detector went crazy, 19,480 CPM and climbing with the detector right on the channel selector. The good thing is I always kept the cover on the controls and that cut it down to almost the background level a foot away.  I know that count can mean something or nothing, and the  credit card size chart you get with the counter warns that anything over 2000CPM I should get as far away as possible and notify the government.  I won't be doing that as the count is only hot when you are within 6 inches of the dial.  I checked my R390A, the carrier meter was hot, not like the MAW-1 though, and the audio meter was about 1/5 of the carrier.  Guess this is one R390A that got missed in the government meter changeout.

Charlie, W4MEC in NC