HI Thomas, normally I respect your critical approach, especially when you obviously take time to Analyse some results and data and make good arguments. Even if I do not always agree I respect your approach and find your thought through criticisms interesting. I think your point about TC noise sounds interesting and am quite interested what you find about that. However...
In your above statement you mentioned that the curves characteristics are not bremsstrahlung like and even in fact "have completely the wrong characteristics". I'm quite confused by that as it looks very bremsstrahlung like to me for typical emission of beta say with a Q value around 1400 keV, and fermi and plasma frequencies in the metal below the sensitivity of the device? Could you clarify what you meant by that? Perhaps I misunderstood your point as you seemed quite certain in your statement
Also were there any elements present that would have characteristic X-Ray emissions with in the sensitivity of the Scintillator? I don't think many heavy elements were present. I suppose if tungsten or lead or something is In thedevice it could have characteristic X-rays about 67 keV or 80 keV or so. But I think characteristic X-Rays for nickel and aluminum would be below the sensitivity of the Scintillator could you clarify this for me too as I think you were also quite certain about this too as you said it is "obviously wrong"