Ludlum should pay you! I bought a Model 12 and a 44-9 detector recently after watching your videos. I love all the information you provide. I come here to geek out.

Wow! Thank you Tom!

Its Arsenate too I believe..and around 75% uranium

It's so true what you say at the start of the video. My most active specimen is a tiny little piece of uraninite (from Colorado) yet I have a simply huge lump of pitchblende (from Cornwall, England) which registers less than half the counts that the small piece gets.

@whangie1

8 жыл бұрын

So US: 1 England: 0

@victorfiori105

8 жыл бұрын

I have a sample of uraninite from Utah that weighs 80.9 grams but reads over 40,000cpm with a GMC-320plus (M4011 geiger tube)

@Thoriumboy

8 жыл бұрын

Natural sources are nice, but I've got a push-button cap 1/2" wide active area with radium on it that reads 165,000 cpm (incl. alpha).

@teresashinkansen9402

5 жыл бұрын

I have an rotating anode X-ray tube that makes all my detectors go off scale, dose rate at 10cm is 250Sv/h (with the power source i have, should be capable of much much more) according to RadPro.

Good to see some MCA videos. :)

Hi Tom, I just got some Uranium with some reading and was wondering if I can get your thoughts how safe it is or should I just throw it away. I got a uranium ore with Coffinite Carnotite, Uraninite and the following reading: CPM 601, 3.00 uSv/h and Maximum CPM: 695 ... would this be ok to keep in the house ... thx ...

Neat! Is there a way to display the Gamma Spectacular like a graph...somehow like...I don't know...maybe with some audio software? Just looking for an inexpensive graph readout for identifying what's in a sample. I'm a nooob. LOL

I wonder where the gamma or x-rays of lead 214 an bismut 214 are from. The uran-radium decay chain say they both decay beta (bismut also sometimes alpha) and with a lot more energy than the gamma spectrometer detect them. Is it some kind of x-ray flouresence or bremsstrahlung ?

@Anti-proton

8 жыл бұрын

Radioactive atoms typically decay either through alpha or beta decays. After such a decay, the nucleus of the atom is left in an excited state, sometimes. This excited state must lose energy and it does so by emitting gamma rays. Similarly, the electrons around the atom may also be an excited state and lose their energy via x-rays. This is why gamma emissions are often associated with decays, though a gamma itself is not the direct result of a decay. I cannot recall if PB 214 gammas result from Po218 -> Pb214 or Pb214 -> Bi214. I'd have to go look it up. I believe it's Pb214 -> Bi214. For example, Cs137 is well known for it's 662 keV gamma ray... but, did you know that this gamma ray actually comes from the excited state of its daughter, barium 137m?

@Rela-tiv

8 жыл бұрын

I also thought once or twice about, if it's possible with a powerful laser, to "inject" enought energy to speed up the decay of this excited atoms or even excite more atoms and increase the rate of decays. Seems pretty unlikely but has anyone tested this so far?

@Anti-proton

8 жыл бұрын

Rela-tiv This, as far as I know, as not occurred. You would have to solve a Schrödinger equation which allows for the transition/decay you want perfectly. Of course, much of this requires things like quarks flipping or tunneling, which the laser wouldn't help.

@ericc5987

2 жыл бұрын

@@Anti-proton Tom, make more videos please! We miss you, and your videos and kitty! Hope all is well, hope to see some nuclear videos again! Been a fan of yours for 10 years now

Thats a very low grade sample of coffinite.