[ RadSafe ] hand held meters

[Dennis Quinn]

Typically, near background surveys are performed with a scintillation detector, such as a 2" x 2" sodium iodide. The background you listed of 20 micro-R/hr sounds a bit high for typical background. There's a bit more to it, such as making sure you really know the background variability, if you are trying to distinguish from background. As previously mentioned, it depends on what specifically you are looking for.  

Dennis Quinn 


> On Jan 14, 2014, at 15:18, JOHN.RICH at sargentlundy.com wrote:
> 
> radsafers
> 
> We're looking for practical experience on using hand held monitors in an 
> outdoor setting.
> 
> The background gamma dose rates in the area are about 0.02 mR/hr.
> The expected change that we want to see is from about 0.02 mR/hr to 0.04 
> mR/hr.
> So the dose rate goes from about 0.02 mR/hr to 0.04 - 0.06 mR/hr. (two x 
> background to 3 x background)
> 
> The questions are:
> (1) what kind of hand held monitor would be good to see this change (e.g., 
> PIC, GM tube, scintillation detector, etc.)?
> (2) since this is outdoors, how long should the surveyor wait for the 
> readings to stabilize after a random spike?.
> 
> I asked a similar question earlier,  and the consensus seemed to be that 
> making these measurements with a hand held monitor was problematic. My 
> personal experience in this area is very limited, but it seems like the 
> spikes could reach about 0.01 mR/hr and lasted several seconds.
> 
> thanx in advance  - -jmr
> 
> John Rich
> 312-269-3768
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