Best enclosure for mounting geiger tube outdoors
4 years 8 months ago #4614
by nzoomed
Im going to stick with the SBM-20 for now I think, but may set up another station in the area for a friend with a different tube.
Just waiting to get my kits from DIY Geiger.
Im also going to build a handheld unit using a philips 18504. I believe its basically near identical specs to the LND712.
Your right about using alpha tubes outdoors, its almost a pointless exercise. Iodine 131 is both a strong gamma and beta emitter, so I would expect this would trigger off readings in the event of a nuclear event anyway.
Ive been watching the stations in europe after the recent event in Russia, but doesnt seem to have made any noticeable impact on readings from what i can see. I do believe that iodine 131 has been detected in norway, but its short half life does not give it much time to spread and be detected.
Replied by nzoomed on topic Best enclosure for mounting geiger tube outdoors
Oh, yes I see it thanksHi nzoomed,
Yeah, I got your PM. I replied last night.
Use your SBM-20 for now. Get up and running with it and go from there. Maybe try a different tube in the future. They are fun to experiment and play about with. It's always good to check the specs of a tube before you buy it as some require quite high voltages to run, so the small cheap MCU type counters, like my GC-10 won't go higher than 700-800v. The DiyGeiger runs to about 950v.
There are some more exotic tubes that can require 1200v or even 1600v as I saw for one tube.
Generally the SBM-20 style (metal can with terminals on each end) are below 500v so good to run on the cheap counters. The LND712 is a good little tube for gamma (y), beta (b) and alpha (a) though a little pricey at ~£75 and is slightly less sensitive than the SBM-20 to y & b. The SBT-10A and SBT-11A are good quite sensitive y, b & a tubes. You can often find them on ebay. The 10A for ~£45 and the 11A for ~£25. They are essentially the same tube but the 10A has 10 anodes and the 11A has only 4 anodes. Its kinda useless using these tubes outdoor to pick up alpha because they will need covering from the elements and thus block alpha.
Im going to stick with the SBM-20 for now I think, but may set up another station in the area for a friend with a different tube.
Just waiting to get my kits from DIY Geiger.
Im also going to build a handheld unit using a philips 18504. I believe its basically near identical specs to the LND712.
Your right about using alpha tubes outdoors, its almost a pointless exercise. Iodine 131 is both a strong gamma and beta emitter, so I would expect this would trigger off readings in the event of a nuclear event anyway.
Ive been watching the stations in europe after the recent event in Russia, but doesnt seem to have made any noticeable impact on readings from what i can see. I do believe that iodine 131 has been detected in norway, but its short half life does not give it much time to spread and be detected.
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