[Weather] Weather Digest, Vol 36, Issue 6

[Rich Mulvey]

M. Daniel Becque wrote:

> Rich,
>
> Could you be a little more specific about the hardware you bought and 
> your modifications?
>
> Out of curiosity, what kind of information does your geiger counter 
> give you? I imagine the solar background is relatively high and varied 
> but what else shows up? Are there seasonal changes in the counts that 
> correspond to solar intensity?
>


    There really wasn't much to it at all - if you search Ebay for 
"DRSB-01',  you'll find other examples of the geiger counter I used.  I 
removed it from its case, put a miniature relay in line with the 
indicator LED, and then connected the relay outputs to a 1-wire counter 
chip.  Whenever the current was sufficient for the LED, the relay would 
energize and bump the counter value.

   I tried using it outdoors for a couple of days, but as I mentioned, 
got substantial arcing in high-humidity conditions from the high-voltage 
power supply.  So I took it down and shoved in in a drawer someplace.  
;-)  It wasn't up long enough to make any sort of useful set of 
measurements.

   Additionally, if you wanted to really make significant measurements, 
you'd want to use something other than a relay - it wouldn't give you 
anywhere near an accurate indication for more than a few counts per 
second.  A transistor switch connected to the audio indicator would 
probably be much more useful.  But as a proof of concept, this got the 
job done.

- Rich