CDV's

[Robin_Siskel@NOTES.YMP.GOV]

Principal: Robin Siskel
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  Some additional information in reference to John Kilbane's post on cdv's...
  Back in '86 I did a little study on the civil defense kit pocket dosimeters
  while I
   was a summer intern at ORNL's Dosimetry Applications Research facility.

  If I remember correctly, there were three brands of pencils included,
  Landsvaark,
  Bendix, and Victoreen... some of each brand reading 0 to 200 mR, some 0 to 200
   R.
  Most were very old.

  As you all might have expected, a good number of the dosimeters, even tho
  ancient,
  responded and functioned quite well.  The surprise was in the dosimeters that
  failed,
  and the way in which they failed.  Depending on the brand, somewhere between
  6% to 20%
  of the dosimeters would zero properly and appear to be functional, but would
  drastically
  over-respond when irradiated.  These dosimeters would rezero just fine again.
  The only way you would know they were defective is if you had others exposed
  to the
  same field for comparison.

  So, hypothetically, if these were in actual use, some poor guy might think
  he'd gotten
  180 R when in reality it was 10 R.  Of course, its probably a moot issue, not
  to mention
  a little obscure for our purposes, but thought some of you might be interested
   anyhow.

  Robin Siskel
  (Robin_Siskel@notes.ymp.gov)
  The standard disclaimer
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