Posts by can

I did a different test today.

1. 2018-11-01 15:35 CET: Finished mounting rig on a movable "cart" in the middle of Room B
2. 2018-11-01 15:46 CET: Moved cart just outside of Room B in front of a thick divisory wall
3. 2018-11-01 16:17 CET: Moved cart inside Room A in front of thick perimeter wall and side of window
4. 2018-11-01 16:33 CET: Moved cart below desk where experiments have been conducted and in front of thick divisory wall
5. 2018-11-01 16:54 CET: Moved cart inside bathroom on the opposite side of the floor relatively to Room A, in front of thick perimeter wall with ceramic tiles
6. 2018-11-01 17:26 CET: Moved cart inside large Room C in front of 7 cm thick radiator alongside outer thick perimeter wall, next to Room A (thick divisory wall between both rooms).
7. 2018-11-01 17:53 CET: Moved cart in front of glass pane of large door-window of Room C
8. 2018-11-01 18:28 CET: Moved cart back in the middle of Room B

This is what I'm seeing on a close-up view of background GM data vs solar flux data. I'm not sure if others can confirm too.

There's not always a 1:1 correspondence but I think not only the general daily trend is similar (which arguably might be kind of expected from a 24-hour periodic signal), but also features on a shorter scale are.

Robert Horst

It is indeed a very cheap instrument: https://netio.stores.jp/

The pre-assembled version is 72 USD, while the kit version is 52 USD. Both include the SBM-20 GM tube.

The manufacturer claims:

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GC10 was designed early days after 3.11 to explore and investigate highly contaminated area in Fukushima.

Focusing on simple feature and good manufacturability for nuclear catastrophic situation, few parts for high reliability and circuit's understandability.

The reset button does feel "energized" to the touch, this I noticed.

EDIT: as for the experiment, so far the magnitude of the periodic component of the signal seems largely unchanged. What's interesting is that short-term variations in background GM readings seem to track to some extent those also present in solar B-flux data. However, it could be just an impression (or wishful thinking).

Solar B flux data here:

https://satdat.ngdc.noaa.gov/s…/full/2018/10/goes15/csv/

https://satdat.ngdc.noaa.gov/s…/full/2018/11/goes15/csv/ (soon here too)

EDIT2: what's even more interesting is that those short-term variations in solar B-flux data occurred almost 40 hours earlier. To make it align with my Geiger data, I'm shifting it forward in time. This means that daily solar data would have some predictive power on the behavior of the measured background signal. Hopefully I'm not making some mistake somewhere.

magicsound

No worries, that was a good occasion for updating the thread with more information.

I took a couple photos for manual long term averaged CPM verification.

From EXIF data:

00:21:31, 7159

00:52:08, 9217

2058 counts / 1837 seconds = 1.120 CPS = 67.218 CPM

This seems to agree with logged data as seen from the latest graph:

I've had problems with the script I made. Every once in a while it appears there's a race condition in the multithreaded code which causes it to fail.

There's no need for anybody to know what I do or don't do in my life. On a much smaller scale and extent, a problem often seen on large multi-topic discussion forums like Reddit is that users often dismiss or ridicule opposing views solely basing on the posting history and forum participation, which are public.

"Old guard" researchers who only studied cold fusion for the past 30 years might be fine with public identities, but most other people likely are not.

I find kind of hypocrite that those who demand identities to be public would also require a private discussion forum hidden from public view. That doesn't really show their preparedness on that regard.

magicsound

A while back I posted an excerpt from a blogpost from a person with an SBM-20 tube who made polarity reversal tests with a Cs-137 test source and found that the response at the "wrong" polarity was lower, similarly to what I observed, even if in theory it should haven't. That's what motivated my hypothesis. However, that is no Am source.

Relevant quote below:

http://uvicrec.blogspot.com/20…0-geiger-muller-tube.html

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The tube is clearly marked with a "+" on one of the terminals. But theoretically it should collect charge on either terminal. So what happens if you reverse it?

At +400 V I recorded 3068 CPM. At -400V I got 1381, about 45% of the + reading. When I removed the source altogether I got 9 CPM. So clearly its working as a detector, albeit less efficiently.

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I tried to take current measurements and by 700 V spikes were already occurring

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By 900 V the signal was unstable as they no longer settled to a steady state. Maybe oscillating with the capacitor?

Overall appears to be less efficient and works under a much narrower range. Presumably GM tubes are optimized for positive voltage though so maybe it could be improved a lot if you intentionally tried to design a negative center GM tube. In any case, the biggest takeaway is that under standard 400 V operation the tube works. This is actually unfortunate as you might not notice you installed it backwards (mechanically possible).

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At the moment I don't have any known/certified radioactive source to check for myself.

magicsound

Thanks for your commentary on the circuit; unfortunately my expertise in electronics is quite lacking, so hopefully other people will be able to tell better than I can if you're correct.

I can only point out that before reversing the tube polarity, the signal in my testing room (at a time of the day when it was low) used to be ~40 CPM, which became ~85 CPM under the same conditions after reversing it. Since the total amplitude of the periodic part didn't appear to change significantly and in a relatively shielded place (but still possibly on an area which might have a higher background radioactivity than normal) just outside my house with the tube in this configuration I'm getting 40-45 CPM, I'm wondering how this noise would be affecting the base signal. I don't think it would be with a simple offset.

EDIT: attached the data collected so far. Both files are in different formats. Initially ("geigerclicks") I logged the pulses as they came from the counter, but then ("remoteclicks") I opted to only log the number of pulses per "tick", with each tick being typically (but not necessarily) about 1 second apart.

magicsound

Here's the schematic which came with the documentation.

Assembly manual in Japanese (for the kit version):

http://netiodev.com/GC10.pdf

http://netiodev.com/KGM.pdf

Most catalysts here are undisclosed.

http://www.subtleatomics.com/dense-electron-catalysts

Here is a graph a few hours after I started logging counts two rooms away on the same floor . I had software timing issues (?) which caused timestamps to get inconsistently logged (causing fake CPS spikes) and the script to fail for some reason, which caused "holes" in the graph. After I opened a "true" Linux virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+Fn) and ran the script there instead of using a terminal window in the Linux desktop environment I was previously using (xfce), it appears to be more stable, but long term stability remains to be seen. Probably not something that will be of use to most people, but I'm reporting it for the sake of completeness.

This photo shows that the clicks logged are within 2% of those displayed by the GM counter. I started the script and reset the counter at the same time. Photo sharpened for readability purposes.

Quote from Bruce__H

Edit: I wonder if the periodic component is somehow local. Could your rig spend 24 hours somewhere else? Even outside in your car for instance?

Quote from can

Unfortunately I don't currently have the possibility of bringing it elsewhere and also retain logging capabilities.

I just moved it into a different room on the same floor, using a rather low-end laptop PC. I had to use the other script I made which is less taxing on system resources. I verified it has the identical click loss rate as the one I was using on the PC I'm using to write this comment, so there should be no change in behavior overall on that side.

Counts both from the graph and displayed on the actual counter, are lower. It will be interesting to see about the diurnal periodic component.

EDIT: graph updated, added photo of the "setup" (btw: it's clear where I live, I just prefer to not make it too blatant).

Alan Smith

I definitely did misunderstand you, thanks for correcting.

Bruce__H

I don't know if it would just be a matter of energy range, although it is certainly possible it is now picking more energies. The outer shell is part of the cathode and it's supposed to be at ground potential from what I read.

I guess the way the tube operates would change slightly if it was at a positive potential. Therefore I was wondering if for example sensitivity to charged particles would change as well. Alan Smith in the comment above did not report significant changes in a reversal test, but perhaps this would be more apparent with beta emitters.

This is how these tubes are constructed from this website:

https://sites.google.com/site/…hnical/gm-tubes-supported

Unfortunately I don't currently have the possibility of bringing it elsewhere and also retain logging capabilities. For what it's worth, inside the car readings seemed more stable on the short term, but also noticeably lower than I'm getting here, so that could be the explanation.

As for the possible long-term correlation of background (?) Geiger counts with solar activity, here's an appropriately updated graph. I'm not entirely sure about solar B-Flux data alignment:

Compare with this. Below I added 24 hours to the B_FLUX timestamps, i.e., pushed them forward. The graph seems more correct this way.

More tangible proof for the above comment.

(EDIT: added) testing room, before checking out outside. I had to enhance a photo to make counts readable.

228 counts / 155 seconds = 1.471 CPS avg, 88.25 CPM avg

Porch on the floor below, in front of a large closed window.

144 counts / 125 seconds = 1.152 CPS avg, 69.12 CPM avg

Inside a car in front of my house

107 counts / 147 seconds = 0.728 CPS avg, 43.67 CPM avg

Front gate, about 30m away

121 counts / 123 seconds = 0.984 CPS avg, 59.02 CPM avg

Current average in my testing room, about 90 CPM

FWIW, I tried testing it just outside my home and it's measuring 50-55 CPM; about 85 CPM in the floor where I'm located and about 95-105 CPM where I did my usual tests at the moment. The former aren't long measurements so they have limited accuracy, but the counter does seem to be working, i.e. responding to environmental changes.

EDIT: this also verified that the problem likely isn't USB power. I used battery power.

Alan Smith

I tried reversing tube polarity back and forth, and I could replicate the same behavior:

But again, this behavior seems consistent with what this person tested with a Cs-137 source. Perhaps you could try with one, if you have it?

http://uvicrec.blogspot.com/20…0-geiger-muller-tube.html

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[...] At +400 V I recorded 3068 CPM. At -400V I got 1381, about 45% of the + reading. When I removed the source altogether I got 9 CPM. So clearly its working as a detector, albeit less efficiently.

I might be writing about it too soon, but these are the preliminary results from reversing the polarity of the Geiger tube to the apparently correct one:

• The signal overall more than doubled
• The periodic daily component did not proportionally increase, and if anything got less noticeable
• It is detecting more of something, but less of something else?
  • EDIT: possibly less positively charged particles and more negatively charged particles?
• The behavior does not seem to indicate that there was just an overall amplification of the signal

Longview

It was Al2O3-NiO: Fusionist's NiO FiberFrax experiments (see post)

However I don't think there's nickel to any significant amount in the steel pieces I used so far: they are strongly attracted to the neodymium magnets I have. Austenitic stainless steel is generally non-magnetic or weakly magnetic. The higher the nickel percentage in the alloy, the less magnetic it is.

https://www.mtm-inc.com/ac-201…316-stainless-steels.html

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Both 316 and 304 stainless steels are austenitic; when they cool, the iron remains in the form of austenite (gamma iron), a phase of iron which is nonmagnetic. The different phases of solid iron correspond to different crystal structures. In other alloys of steel, this high-temperature phase of iron transforms to a magnetic phase when the metal cools. The presence of nickel in the stainless steel alloys stabilizes austenite against this phase transition as the alloy cools to room temperature. As a result, a relative permeability of K ∼ 1.002 to 1.005 are typically reported for 304 and 316 stainless steels in their annealed state. This corresponds to a somewhat larger magnetic susceptibility than we might expect for other nonmagnetic materials, but is still well below what might be considered magnetic.

Bruce__H

I realize it's clutching at straws, but there was a suggestion of a potential correlation with solar emissions in reported working LENR experiments (e.g. by Russ George et al) and the changes I'm observing so far do not seem to be due to temperature or other usual environmental changes. If LENR can be affected by solar emissions, background radiation probably can too.

RobertBryant

Perhaps by limiting the range studied to low energy gamma radiation it might be possible to use a Geiger tube for that. By lowering the operating voltage, these tubes can be brought to the so-called proportional region where pulse height depends on the energy of the incoming radiation. They might be too slow and have a too low signal SNR for this to be actually useful in practice, but in theory it should work. Unfortunately I do not have yet a suitable serial interface to change the voltage setting in my counter and try this.

Some links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_counter

http://drmichelleboyce.net/cubesats/apctheory/index.html

http://uvicrec.blogspot.com/20…0-geiger-muller-tube.html