On 20/02/2015 16:26, Brian Gaff wrote:
What about the trimfones btalite gas filled tube behind the dial?
I can recall being rather appalled back in the 60s when we found my
grandfathers old alarm clock in a drawer, still glowing from dots of
something or other after 10 years. I doubt it would be adangerous unless you
strapped it to yourself for a while though.


We binned it.
Brian

Trimfones used a fair amount of tritium. I believe during the cleanup of
Harwell (it might have been another government site) a rather active
hole in the ground was discovered where, it turns out, a significant
number of these phones had been dumped.

Sealed tritium sources are safe enough, you can still buy them as small
long-lasting light sources used by extreme campers / sailors etc, but
not in the UK.