solar radiation.

I'm new to the whole radiation monitoring scene and was wondering if someone might be able to answer a question if they know more about this than me. I am currently running a beta 1 - 1 model pancake tube I get normal background readings of 15 to 20cpm but I've noticed during the day it goes up anywhere from 30 to slightly over a hundred. I've checked and my tube does not appear to be light-sensitive. today I noticed it was exactly 6:22 a.m. when my reading started to spike and I went looked up sunrise time and it in the sunrise was 6:22 a.m. . Could I actually be picking up solar radiation I see we are having a solar storm right now in the higher latitudes.

Thanks,
Steve

I now have a collection of about seven different Geiger tubes including two pancake tubes or 2 different models and both pancake tubes seem to do this. Since I've ruled out light sensitivity (I have found one of my tube style Geiger tubes to be extremely light sensitive). I hadn't thought to mention both of my pancake tubes are capable of measuring Alpha radiation and I'm not running an Alpha Shield maybe I should be? Being that I like to know how everything works even if this is a failure of the tubes I want to know what's causing it I can't see what else they could be detecting during the day that would cause this even if it is a fault. I have now verified over multiple days that like clockwork within 1 to 2 minutes of sunrise and sunset this affect starts and stops. The only thing I can think of ruling out light sensitivity and this being a faulty tube would be that the Geiger kit is doing something since it knows the time of day but it does not produce these elevated Day readings on any of my other non light-sensitive non pancake style tubes.

I would like to be part of the monitoring Network. I have pm'ed you my info twice during the last 6 days I can send it again.

I think you are seeing actual Alpha radiation from Radon. Daily variations of Radon at ground level have been studied and are known to be dependent on temperature differences (like sunrise), wind velocity and ground level moisture (dry soil allows more Radon gas to move up). The convective air movement at sunrise due to objects warming and the nearby air rising brings Radon up from the ground where it diffuses out. Googling "diurnal radon" or "daily variation radon" produces many papers and books on the subject. This one from a Greek University is written more clearly than the others I just looked at.

Try your pancake detectors with the alpha shields, and then maybe put one covered at ground level to see if it peaks earlier.

Thanks for the info I will check it out. I checked a few weeks ago and found a radon map and it shows I live in an area with high radon levels (northern illinois) so there may be something to this.