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The mantle in some Coleman lanterns are radioactive. Bring your Geiger counter to a local hardware store
and check them out.
Uranium ore from a mineral or a rock store should also emit sufficient radiation to trigger the counter.
A more reliable source is to purchase a radioactive source. Small amounts of radioactive materials are
available for sale encased in 1 inch diameter by ¼" thick plastic disks. The disks are available to the gen-
eral public license exempt. This material outputs radiation in the micro-curie range and has been deemed
by the Federal government as safe.
The cesium-137 is a good gamma ray source. The cesium 137 has a half-life of 30 years.
Radioactive uranium ore and radioactive isotopes are available for purchase from Images Scientific In-
struments.
http://www.imagesco.com/geiger/radioactive-sources.html
S e p a ra t i n g & D e t e c t i n g A l p h a , B e t a a n d G a m m a
By placing shields of different materials in front of the GM
tube we can filter out some radiation. For instance placing a
paper shield in front of the GM tube will block all the Alpha
radiation. The Geiger counter will now only detect beta and
gamma radiations. If we place a thin metal shield in front of
the GM tube that would effectively block the alpha and beta
radiation, allowing the detection of only gamma radiation.
Radiation Shields for wand are available here:
http://www.imagesco.com/geiger/shields.html
DTG-01
Fin din g Rad ioa cti ve
Sou rce s
17
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