Producing Radiation Maps - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 90

6.1. Producing radiation data
Mapping mashups were created in the following stages:
data obtained from Geiger counters were merged with data
extracted (by Web scraping) and structured from official
websites. The independent measurements as well as the data
extracted were then put together on online platforms to
make them easier to re-use and map.
6.1.1. Producing data with Geiger counters
A large number of Geiger counters were already scattered
around Japan and started transmitting information on
radiation levels as soon as the disaster occurred 9 . However,
after March 11, 2011, Geiger counters were sold out 10 , and
the numerous flights to Japan were blocking the delivery of
the devices 11 . Several solutions were implemented to counter
the scarcity of counters. First of all, old counters were
collected and “hacked” to obtain digital data. Akiba, member
of the Tokyo Hackerspace, took part in this enterprise by
adapting an analogous Geiger counter to extract digital data:
I wanted to put the other Geiger counter up
publicly and as quickly as possible to share the
data with others in Tokyo […]. So, being the nerd
that I am, I proceeded to hack it into what I
wanted. These are the project details of the
process of converting a cold-war era, analog
Geiger counter into a device that can digitally
9 See: freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/Hacking-a-Geiger-Counter-in-
Nuclear-Tokyo.html.
10 See: freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/Hacking-a-Geiger-Counter-in-
Nuclear-Tokyo.html.
11 See: blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/03/hackerspace-happenings-make-
interviews tokyos-akiba.html.