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21st Century Amateur Rad Lab.
Had a computer failure last month so decided to just replace the main desktop with something modern, and a flat panel display. Good move, as the letters were actually worn off the old keyboard and the giant monitor was fuzzy and hard to read. New computer looks and works fine, freeing up a lot of space along with the obvious performance improvements, but only has USB ports and a Hard Drive and CD R/W. No parallel printer port either!
USB is great and my USC-20 Spectrum Analyzer has that connection but the URSA-2 and GR-135 Spectrum Analyzers have only RS-232. My new Digital camera also supports USB but the older Sony FD-95 has floppies, so a USB-Floppy drive had to be added to the computer. The Sony has a memory stick-floppy adaptor which will also give the new computer memory stick capability. When I added a larger SD memory card to the new camera, it came with a USB-SD adaptor so now the new computer can have SD capacity and the SD memory can be used as a flash drive with that adaptor too.
Fortunately USB to RS-232 cables are available cheaply as are USB to Centronics.
Hooking up the URSA-2 to the new computer was not too hard. Over time I will learn all the intricacies of the URSA-2 > it is a wonderful tool.
Besides MCA it also does MCS, a feature that registers CPM vs. time. Just such a tool was needed last year when we were chasing down the rouge industrial X-RAY machine. The MCS could have been deployed in a parked car for days on end and chart the occurrences and time factor for the strong episodes ( up to 45 seconds long).
Bottom line:
PRO- much more capability in a much smaller space.
CON- the operator (me) has to learn all the current ways of doing things all over again.
When boiled down to the basics;
21st Century Home Lab:
UCS-20 Spectrum Analyzer - MCA/MCS
3" X 3" NaI(Tl) in a 300 pound graded shield
Canberra NIM Model 7401 Alpha Spectrometer
Ludlum 2929 Alpha-Beta counter
Ludlum Model 2500 Spectrometer
Ludlum Model 2600 Spectrometer
Ludlum Model 2218 Dual Channel Spectrometer
Golden Electronics Inspector 200 W/ X-ray intensifier
Calibrated absorber sets
21st Century Test Lab:
Ludlum Model 500-2 digital pulser
Eberline Model MP-2 pulser
Eberline Model MP-1 pulser
21st Century Mobile Lab:
RM-20 alarming ratemeter
Eberline Remball w/ scaler
USRA-2 MCA + HP laptop
Personnel Carried:
GR-135 Identifier MCA
Canberra PM-1703M pager CsI scintillator alarm and ratemeter
RADOS 60 Si Diode pager alarm and ratemeter/dosemeter
Ludlum 2224 Alpha-Beta counter
Ludlum 2221 GP ratemeter/scaler W/probes
Another lab here is the RF Lab, which is not 21st century at all, but is quite capable.
Have fun
Geo
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