Re: consumer products that make nice sources

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At 10:34 PM 11/3/95, Timothy C. May wrote:
>At 5:46 PM 11/3/95, Brad Dolan wrote:
>
>>The tag on my Montana Sunshine Radon Mine radon pillow is a little blurred

>>I think the following is the right phone number.
>>
>>Sunshine Mine is an amusing concept.  People pay money to go breathe radon
>>there, while others are spending much money avoiding radon.
>>
>>Anyway, the pillows make nice sources and good conversation pieces.
>
>I'd say they make poor sources. Far too large. A smaller source has better
>access to the detector without adding much to the overall background the
>user is exposed to. (I'm not saying low-level uranium or thorium sources
>are much of a hazard, but the fluence presented at the detector is very low
>for such an extended source.)

If it's a cheap source of higher-than-background radiation, try a smoke
detector. They are getting darn cheap these days, and my First Alert Model
83R says it contains 1.0 Microcurie of Americium 241. This should raise the
count rate significantly over background. And if one isn't enough, you could
always get several, remove the module with the radioactive materials in it
(it's a sort of black cylinder in mine) from several, and put them all in a
box with the radiation detector. As I remember, I bought 2 or three of these
detectors in a single package for about $15 3 years ago. They should be
quite cheap by now.

Although, I don't think it has the same sort of humor value as the pillow.
(What's that hooked to your computer Mike? It's a pillow Bob. Don't ask.)


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Michael Kohne                  mhkohne@discordia.org or mhkohne@moberg.com
"Quantum mechanics is your friend"
Key fingerprint =  EE 22 9D 9B 32 5E F1 37  D2 B3 DC 78 19 24 D1 E8

Lots of people are discussing all sorts of weird souces of radioactive
material to use in a detector for an RNG.

None of this is necessary. Scientific supply houses will happily sell
you small calibrated sources for use in your lab, classroom, or in our
case, machine room (:-).  There is no need to find objects to
dismantle or silly dangerous radioactive sources. You can get a source
that produces exactly as much activity as you need very cheaply.

Perry

On Sat, 4 Nov 1995, Michael Kohne wrote:
> 
> Although, I don't think it has the same sort of humor value as the pillow.
> (What's that hooked to your computer Mike? It's a pillow Bob. Don't ask.)
> 

I've always wanted to make a RNG by sticking a Brownian motion detector 
into a really hot cup of tea...

Simon // Share and Enjoy(tm)