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RE: Respect
Franz:
Have you considered taking up the zither?
With apolgies to Harry Lime, Orson Wells and "The Third Man".
At 05:09 PM 9/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>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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*************************************************
Eric Cowdrey
Radiation Protection Officer
Department of Medical Physics
Manitoba Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation
100 Olivia Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 0V9
CANADA
Telephone: (204) 787-2166/4145
Fax: (204) 775-1684
E-mail: ericc@mail.mctrf.mb.ca
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information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html