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On Mar 7, 2023, at 17:37, Anthony Lapinski via Phys-l <phys-l@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:
counter
I teach in high school and am wanting an "inexpensive" portable geiger
for some activities in our Science Club. To detect alpha, beta, and gamma
radiation (and x-rays?). I want the device to have a peaker so kids can
easily hear the ticks. Many are available online. Anyone have experience
with these or use one in their teaching? Any good activities, ideas, or
write-ups?
Added after finally reading more carefully your request. You already know
much of the following.
I think the spectrum Techniques manual will answer that question. A 1950s
yellow box one W/ speaker will do for crude absorption. Only a few of them
have a thin window for alpha.
https://theelectronicgoldmine.com/collections/geiger-counters
Unfortunately none of the above have speakers, but Chaney has other kits.
One of which may supply what you want. Why must it be portable?
Wrong I can hear clicks. But the rear LED isn’t flashing. Chaney also
has counter kits one of which possibly be combined with the above kit.
Spectrum Techniques is a source of sources, both sealed and liquid. i
have one of their MCAs. Very good except the HV P/S is noisy, so the low
energy end is unavailable unless one makes a low pass filter (one stage LC.
200mH — 0.1 µFd sufficient). Includes multi channel scalar for half life,
etc. (the etc. includes Mössbauer! But $3k. And requires an IBM
platform computer — I think they sell an ion-exchange Ba-Cs separation for
the Ba meta half life. The also have detailed lab manuals.
https://www.spectrumtechniques.com/wp-content/uploads/Spectrum-Techniques-Teachers-Guide.pdf
If the instruction is advanced, you (AL). may note my Poisson. demo:
http://cleyet.org/Misc._Physics/Poisson%20(AAPT)/Background%20G-M%20detected%20events.pdf
Another very cute experiment is finding the Beta spectrum using
absorption. Adding of Al foil sheets and the counts knowing the energy
absorption gives the spectrum, of course, not nearly as good as a variable
magnetic field on a 180 deg vacuum chamber.
Vernier has a crude one here:
https://www.vernier.com/vernier-ideas/an-inexpensive-beta-radiation-spectrometer/
bc thinks he’s an expert on simple radiation experiments as the lab. mgr.
for the intermediate and advanced labs at UCSC.
And there's these things:
https://www.etsy.com/market/soviet_geiger_counter and many more on eBay
and Amazon.
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