source was Calibrated in the field over the exposure-rate region used with a set of
Victoreen r-meters calibrated at National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in March 1956.

2.2.6 High-Range Initial-GammaStation Calibration. There were no sources available for direct gamma-radiation calibration up to the maximum ranges of the initialgammainstruments. Because of this lack, scintillation detectors were used, thereby
enabling calibration with a light source. In practice, the instruments were directly calibrated by the use of the 200-curie Co™ source in the field and a Van de Graaff generator
in the laboratory to the limit of the available radiation rates. The calibration was then
extended to the maximum range through the use of a light calibration, which was normalized to the radiation calibration.
The light calibrator consisted of a light source filtered to provide a beam having
approximately the same spectral quality as the light output of the scintillator, and a
series of neutral-density filters that varied the light output in known discrete steps.
Errors due to the direct response of the circuit elements to gamma radiation were introduced into the calibration; hawever, these errors were shownto be small in the
ranges where the light and radiation calibrations overlapped. There were no reasons
why the relative error should have increased beyond the range of dual calibration.
2.3

READOUT ERROR AND ACCURACY OF THE GUSTAVE AND CONRAD SYSTEMS
In general, the output of the Gustave and Conrad detectors may be given as:

r= kt"
Where:

.

(2.4)

r = gamma exposure rate
t = tirne between output pulses
n, k = design parameters

If the error in reading time between pulses (i.e. time base) is At, then:

r+ Ar =k(t + Aty?
Ar = K[¢e + AtyA - n |
Ar — (t + At? - «n

r

a

(2.5)

At
For + << 1,.this formula reduces to the definition of differentials.

r
Where:

t

(2.6)

Ar
.
.
—— = the relative error in gamma-exposure rate due to errors in the time
measurement
TO the relative time-measurement error

25

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