Measured radiation
121.000 µSv/h
Ground level measurement
AEPN
- Atypical measurement
- Beginning date : Monday, 5 February, 2018 - 17:38:14
- Latitude : 36.925743371045
- Longitude : 50.6424236297607
- Altitude (m) :
- Measurement duration : -
- Distance travelled during measurement :
- Measurement environment :
Inside
- Weather :
- Tags :
- Description :
Between 100 and 150 microSv/h measured (121 microSv/h on this photo) inside the kitchen of a house built with radioactive cement (radium carbonate) from the city's riverlets
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Comments
1) You are using the Gamma Scout with all rays (switch wide open to right on the photo). It means that the counter integrates both alpha and beta to the gamma rays. So then the µSv/h is quite a non-sense (as for example alphas are not making irradiant dose). Especially if you are measuring radium-contaminated environement, as A LOT of nucleus in decay chain are mostly beta/alpha emitters.
2) The Gamma Scout's tube (ZP1401) is not energy-compensated, and calibrated only on Cs137. It means that any event at GM tube will be considered as a 662keV gamma particle, even if it was a 53keV gamma or a 3MeV alpha (switch right-open). So it can strongly overestimate dose rate.
3) Gamma Scout is known to give a bit erratic dose rate above 50µSv/h.
So, indeed, yes your measurement shows a contaminated environement, far more than normal background, but you can't trust the µSv/h dose rate displayed on Gamma Scout.
A good measurement would, at most, measure only Gamma rays (switch to center position) to remove strong noise given from the mica window and, at least, be done at one meter above the ground and from the walls. Otherwise you are performing a surface-contamination measurement, not in µSv/h.
Regarding energy-compensation, it could be mayve more relevant to get CPS or CPS instead of µSv/h.
Best regards,