How can you tell when your geiger counter is worn out?

Hello.

I have a terra-p geiger counter which I have used a lot, I am wondering how can we tell when the tube is worn out? I am getting a lot of spikes in my readings, the backup hardware is a CDV-715 Survey meter and a Kvarts 88, neither of which are any good for a comparison.

The background reading from the 715 does reflect what the terra-p reads, however there are a lot of unstable spikes, even in the region of 2-3 µSv,

I guess my second question would be, can I replace the tube if I find a suitable replacement or does it have to be recalibrated due to the soldering or imperfections in the tube?

Sorry, I am no engineer.

Thank you,
~LilFox

check your area for "calibration services". they can tell you, for a price, what you want to know.

If you start bleeding from the nose, mouth, gums, and rectum its probably not working.

Unfortunately my area has none of this..

I was just wondering if there were any known effects, such as increased or decreased resistance due to the degradation of the gases inside the tube causing erroneous readings.

Probably something every survivalist should be familiar with, if they wish to have reliable hardware.

Edmund scientific used to sell a calibration sample. The one I had was a cast disk of tungsten-something alloy, like a small drink coaster or thin hockey puck. You put the tube/probe in a sleeve, and put this disk in the slot at the end. It was pre-measured to produce an average of 5 clicks in 10 seconds, or so many sieverts or whatever.

The sleeve and puck itself block most ambient readings, and allowed you to set the needle to the specified range.


The particular model of Geiger counter was so sensitive that was originally designed for prospecting for uranium by airplane (!)


All the best.

Wow, quite a counter.

I can't import a sample without a license, even for an amount which does not require a license to own. I might just get some uranium marbles and hope they get through.

Thanks for the info.

Talk to an auctioneer who sells/deals in used government lab equipment. That's how I got mine. Not even any paperwork

I know I am not supposed to make short replies, but this is worth it.

Thank you, very much, that is an awesome idea.

I think that there is some conspiracy where homeland security does thing to prevent geiger-counters being too readily available. The reason behind them doing so would be to be able to control the flow of information about radiation level, and they don't want certain projects that use Geiger counters to move forward. They have good intentions. But, I do believe that people should be entitled to do science. Don't try to import any samples and don't assume that radiation samples and counters fall out of stock naturally. Some times they go away because the government gets involved. I'm sure you'll find radiation sources if you look hard enough. Maybe even you can call in a favor from somebody who has access.

I think the US govt controls / tracks ownership of geiger counters because they are critical for people doing naughty things with radiation. Since radiation is otherwise traceless, they can usually catch terrorists (Karen SIlkwood, despite the media snowjob) by their dirty samples. A terrorist who can clean up after himself/herself is one to watch out for.

A survivalist shouldn't rely solely on an electronic geiger counter, which may fail in an EMP. What you want is a "Kearney Fallout Meter." Avoiding fallout is far more important for keeping you alive, than are clicks on a geiger counter.

You can have "acceptable levels of radiation" according to a G-counter, and still be receiving a long-term lethal dose.

Further, the KFM uses no batteries and can be calibrated where you are; it also provides an indication of total dose so far, which is the real question.

Sure, a Geiger counter is useful for making sure you showered effectively when you come in from the apocalypse back to your shelter. But it won't tell you the total dose you got in your sleep last night, while the rain was washing fallout from your rooftop into the soil surrounding your shelter.

All the weblinks are selling survival items, so I won't link to them, but you can research it yourself on the web.

I just want to ensure I have something effective for detecting radioactive contamination in food (alpha).

I took the americium-241 from a smoke detector and have a few thoriated welding rods, commonly available sources