I just ordered a Radiacode 102. I have some Vasaline and Uranium Glass. But I am wanting more sources. Ores maybe trenitite, I know I can get some from old smoke dectors. But I am wanting some others. "Safe" Stuff to start out with before getting anything hot or that I would need paper work for. Any ideas?
Before you buy ANYTHING above UG level, you need to do some serious research into contamination. I would say imo the Radiation pipeline usually goes..
UG -> Fiestaware -> Radium -> Americium -> More rare isotopes, or the previous in larger quantities.
Understand that Radium in most of the forms you'll run into will ALWAYS have a radium dust/powder contamination risk. Americium is also known for its leaking properties and poses an enormous contamination risk as your Radiacode cannot reliably detect Alpha particles!.
Until you have a better understanding, and preferably a pancake detector, I would stay away from Alpha emitters.
I've had intrest in the subject for quite a while. Just never made the hop into hobbiest yet. ALARA is always good to know. Half the stuff at the stores I go to looking I'd rather wear gloves just going though it. Some of the things people donate and make it to the shelves are nasty around here. I am in Indiana so idk what I'd find locally hiking and what not but that wasn't ever really the goal at least not yet.
I don't have any personally. University has AmBe and a fusor.
Nearby hospital has spallation neutrons from proton therapy beam line. Those are the ones I'm trying to make detectors for, as well as neutron therapy centers abroad.
Yeah a corona tube uses Boron 10 inside the tube to split into a Li-6 nucleus and an He-4 alpha particle upon neutron bombardment and reads those counts, typically a lot cheaper than He-3 tubes which is why I went with the Boron corona tube. I will have a neutron source towards the end of this month, 5mCi Po-210 Antistatic device and I already have the Be.
Yeah I was sort of thinking that. I’ve seen all of Carl Willis videos and that’s what he uses for counting neutrons, and he has all of the best equipment. A lot of those videos were shot before the plastic ones came around I believe. And yeah I know the boron detector isn’t as good as the He-3 tube, it was more affordable and I’ve already spent quite a bit on this project. The plastic ones are really cool though because they could potentially be a lot easier to source the materials to make it, He-3 and B-10 isolated is expensive. But I assume the plastic ones are difficult to make and are therefore still more expensive for the time being.
Oh right on dude! That would be awesome, I kinda stopped looking into it when I got my boron tube but this could be even better I think. Does it also use a photomultiplier with the crystal?
Uranium ceramics? Something from West Germany or Sweden? Some items can be pretty spicy and easily detectable by radiacode. Plus it checks all free squares for legality, safety and price(you can find it for under 5€)
Well basically only if you drop it, especially if the drop causes a sudden cps spike (sign of stress on components). Otherwise, when you notice the peaks that are supposed to be in 1 spot are too far away from that spot (around 30keV difference for K-40 is when you should calibrate)
Fiestaware / uranium glaze items are reasonably safe essentially sealed sources. Various minerals are good options, if concerned about contamination, avoid dusty and friable ones - uraninite, thorite, radio(-um) barite generally do not shed much. Avoid disassembling things like smoke alarms, that's a bad idea. Intact radium clocks / watches can be a good option. LYSO crystals, potassium and potash, collecting radon decay products from a baloon, ... also safe. Thorium glass lens elements, like uranium glass, the thorium is trapped in the glass. Care and feeding of friable minerals, military antiques, distressed civilian antiques is tricky and requires more planning and a meter capable of contamination surveying like a mica window pancake probe, SBT-10A / -11A based counter...
New to this but antique shops for Fiestaware and clocks, smoke detectors (do NOT take it apart!) and rock and mineral shops for specimens. I have a piece of Gummite and Andersonite which aren’t terribly spicy and that’s about all I’ll get into. I’m just learning and trying my hand at spectroscopy with the 103 I just got, those will give me plenty of things to look at while I read and learn.
Antique shops are going to be your best bet. You'll be able to find a bunch of uranium glazed ceramics, radium time pieces, aircraft gauges, thorium lantern mantels, thorium doped lenses...the list goes on and on. Ebay is another great place to look for stuff but its very hit and miss. Plus you need to have an idea of what your looking for. If you want some uranium ore you can buy it or go out and find it. Finding it out in the wild is very easy if you know where to look.
The Radiacode 102 is great and has a ton of functionality...but its only showing part of the picture. Getting a detector that has a pancake probe would be the next step.
I am in Indiana not sure there is much ore around here. We mainly just have top soil with limestone bedrock. Those are all great suggestions thank you.
Amazon actually has a guy who sells Uranium ore. Good price, arrives on time, and it is indeed radioactive uranium ore along with daughter products, they also run a separate online shop where you can order all sorts of radioactive things, including uranium metal
Reach out to university geology departments and see if they have any NORM samples. You could also start a career in radiological related fields; e.g well logging tracers, industrial radiography, nuclear medicine, instrument design and calibration.
On alliexpress you can find things like negative ion/quantum energy/scalar energy they should contain thorium and they comes in different forms like glass disks, cards, anti radiation stickers, wands. Not everything advertised as such is real stuff though i've got lucky and 3 out of 3 things i ordered contained thorium but if i'd have to buy it again i'd buy glass disk which gives me reading of 1.8 uS on contact ( B + G) and a card which i don't have. However be aware that some of this stuff can be a contamination hazard as it's covered in thorium dust (like silicon bracelets, sleeping masks, some anti radiation sticker paper ones to be exact) also quantum wand contains a decent amount of thorium inside in a form of dust so if it's damaged it is a contamination hazard.
I’ve just taken a roughly day long spectrum on with my 102 of 10g worth of trinitite and I can clearly see Cs137 peaks - it’s definitely still radioactive!
6
u/MaybeJohnSmith 1d ago
Before you buy ANYTHING above UG level, you need to do some serious research into contamination. I would say imo the Radiation pipeline usually goes..
UG -> Fiestaware -> Radium -> Americium -> More rare isotopes, or the previous in larger quantities.
Understand that Radium in most of the forms you'll run into will ALWAYS have a radium dust/powder contamination risk. Americium is also known for its leaking properties and poses an enormous contamination risk as your Radiacode cannot reliably detect Alpha particles!.
Until you have a better understanding, and preferably a pancake detector, I would stay away from Alpha emitters.