Re: tritium air monitors -Reply -Reply

[MICHAEL S FORD <MFORD@pantex.com>]

Wes, 

Your experience with these instruments still holds today.  None of
the BD models that we have are auto-ranging.  However, the main
purpose of our tritium CAMs is to notify personnel that a
confinement barrier has failed.  Our need to collect data beyond the
alarm setpoint is secondary to personnel notification.  In that sense
the BD CAMs have worked very well for us.

If you have a system with levels fluctuating beyond an order of
magnitude, these CAMs would not fit your needs.  We also have a
few Femto-Tech CAMs that we use in our Cal. facility.  These are
very nice instruments (and more expensive than the BDs).  I do
know that both LANL and Mound use the F-T CAMs.

Unfortunately, the F-T CAMs are not portable.

v/r
Michael
*************************
Michael S. Ford, CHP
Texas Radiation Advisory Board
Address:
Radiation Safety Department
Battelle Pantex
Amarillo, TX
806.477.5727 phone
806.477.4198 fax
mford@pantex.com
*************************

>>> Wes Van Pelt wrote on Wed 22 Jul 98  20:36 >>>
MICHAEL S FORD wrote:
> 
> Kelly,
> 
> Beckton-Dickinson makes two types of portable tritium CAM. 
The
> Model 110 is non-compensated and the Model 111 is a
> compensated tritium CAM that will reject up to a 5 mR/hr field.
> 

Hi All,

My experience with the BD tritium monitors is that they do not have
automatic range changing. (i.e., 1960's electronics).  If the monitor
is
set at the most sensitive range, and the tritium concentration goes
up
by a factor of 10 or more, and you are not there to click the knob to
the next higher range, the data are lost! 

Maybe BD has finally fixed this problem. Maybe not.

cheers,
Wes

-- 
Wesley R. Van Pelt, Ph.D., CIH, CHP                KF2LG
President, Van Pelt Associates, Inc.     
Consulting in radiological health and safety.
mailto:VanPeltW@IDT.net        
http://shell.idt.net/~vanpeltw/index.html