Re: Lantern mantles

["David Krueger" <dkrueger@icnpharm.com>]

Mike Dupray wrote:
I beleive you are all making a mistake. Use of lantern mantles is only good
for demo's and shows. You cannot properly performance test an instrument
with an uncalibrated source. You need to prove that the calibration of the
instrument is still good. The only way to do it right is to use a traceable
standard(s) and test each scale to mid scale. Anything else tells you
nothing except that the needle moves when exposed to radiation.


My response is that a check source only need to be long lived so that its
radioactivity is not going to change over the period that it will be used.
If an instrument is properly calibrated with traceable sources and its
response to any check source (traceable or not) is documented, then
continuing to use that source to verify that the instrument responds in the
same way (gives the same reading consistantly) would appear to be all that
is necessary. Otherwise, Mike's suggestion basically ends up calibrating
the instrument every time it is used.

Dave Krueger, CHP
dkrueger@icnpharm.com


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