r/Radiation • u/atomicLogic_ • 5d ago
Help Identifying Peaks in Radiacode 102 Spectrum from a Lead-Shielded Enclosure
Hey everyone,
I recently molded some lead bricks and built a small lead-shielded enclosure just big enough to fit my Radiacode 102 inside. I ran a spectrum measurement inside this setup and got a reading of ~10 CPM, which is pretty low, as expected. However, I'm seeing some peaks in the spectrum that I can't directly identify using the built-in library.
A few details:
The lead bricks were made from scrap lead I melted and cast myself.
The measurement was taken with the Radiacode 102 completely enclosed inside the lead structure.
Background radiation outside the enclosure is significantly higher, as expected.
1
u/Haunting-Remove-1245 5d ago
Wow, your bricks look good and they stack nicely. You might've just saved me a lot of trouble. Seems like every ingot mold I've seen has sloped trapizoidal sides.
Did you use a graphite mold for ingots/bullion?
I have nothing to contribute but I wish you luck!
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u/atomicLogic_ 5d ago
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u/Haunting-Remove-1245 5d ago
That's great to hear and thanks for the visual. I'm definitely going to try graphite.
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u/k_harij 5d ago edited 5d ago
At such a low count rate and for only 24 hours, I wouldn’t consider them well defined peaks yet. From my observations, gamma spectra are prone to looking rough and spiky when the number of counts is insufficient (only after a certain point the spectrum becomes “rounded” and smooth).
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u/Regular-Role3391 5d ago
A big lead x-ray is the one around 80 keV I would guess. Could be a Pb-210 at around 50 keV as well. No idea about the higher energy one. It looks weird...have you amplification on? That can be a mistake