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RE: Respect
When I joined RADSAFE as a senior studying for a B.S. in
Health Physics, I was not told that you had to be "experienced"
in order to post to this forum. I admit that I originally joined to
look for job postings, but once I joined, I found that I was learning
a lot of information that I had not heard about in lectures and textbooks.
I find the knowledge that people have on RADSAFE very useful and it
is great to know that there are other people out there that you can ask
a quick question (or an in-depth one).
I think that Melissa intended this to be a place where Health Physicists
and other professionals interested in the field could talk about topics
relating to this common interest. However, in the year that I have been
on the list, the condescending replies that some people have given have
really intimidated me. I think this is very unfortunate. This is a very valuable
resource and I feel that people of all backgrounds and experience should feel
comfortable using it. Maybe I missed the rule that you had to be a "certified
health physicist with 10 years experience" to join RADSAFE or ask a simple
question. Being a "brand new" graduate and "brand new" HP, there have been many
times that I have been too intimidated to ask a question for fear that I overlooked
something simple and I would be humiliated by someone with a big ego. I hope
that eventually this will become more relaxed and people will feel comfortable asking
any type of question (related to the nuclear field, of course).
Erin Lambert
Health Physicist
Radiological & Environmental
Management
Purdue University
1662 Civil Engineering Building
West Lafayette, IN 47907
phone: 765-494-2721
email: eclambert@physfac.purdue.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schoenhofer [SMTP:schoenho@via.at]
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 1998 4:16 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Respect
Dear Diana,
I read with some surprise your recent mail and after having read, that you
know everything about this topic, all the shortcomings and that you are
aware that the answer to your original question can be found in textbooks I
am even more surprised, why you posted your question. I have offered you to
give you information on possible tricky questions, but in spite of your
mail I still do not think that RADSAFE is a forum for really basic
questions, which should be covered by basic training. Looking up a textbook
is in my opinion not an extensive research.
I am concerned with the attitude to measure radionuclides, which are
difficult to measure because they are alpha- and/or beta emitters with the
most simple equipment. If it has to be done, then the appropriate equipment
and the appropriately trained personell has to be provided. If both
equipment and personell cannot be provided then the measurements cannot be
done - it is that simple.
As to your original question:
I understand from your last mail that the LUDLUM 3 is a GM pancake
detector, which I have no practical experience with. With this you will not
be able to measure tritium, so any measurement done with this instrument
will not suffer from any interference from tritium. C-14 is a pure
beta-emitter, but you will most probably not be able to measure a
radionuclide with this low energy with the instrument you mentioned.
Further pure beta emitters are of course Sr-90 and Y-90, but their
measurement will hardly be possible in any matrix without chemical
separation and special measurement equipment. As has been pointed out in
one answer, Cs-137 is a beta emitter, but in practice Cs-137 is nowadays
measured via the gamma-rays of the very shortlived daughter Ba-137m. Y-91
it to my knowledge a pure beta-emitter, but it is shortlived and only
present in fresh fallout from a nuclear accident. Other pure beta-emitters
from the natural decay chains are associated with gamma-emitting daughters,
so their concentration can be measured by gamma-spectrometry.
In principle I have always had and still have the opinion that activity
concentration measurements with GM-detectors in contamination monitors are
not possible, unless only one radionuclide is present and it has been
carefully calibrated with the same radionuclide in question and the same
geometry. We have successfully used liquid scintillation spectrometry for
measurement of beta-emitters and developed simple methods for various
radionuclides.
Any specific questions are welcome and I will try to delete in the future
all basic ones.
With my best regards,
Franz
Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at
Office:
Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Department of Radiochemistry
Kinderspitalg. 15
A-1095 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-40 491 520
Fax.: +43-1-40 491 540
e-mail: schoenhofer@baluf.via.at
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information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html