Note: Bug reports as-well-as SOFTWARE UPDATES (Progress) located near bottom of page. Jump to Progress

Remote Sites: Aware's Remote Sites

More new stuff:

• Important COM Port Setup Fix for WIN 98
• Aw-Radw 32 bit Windows software
• Multiple RMs per PC. New Card Available.
• PMI-30 info. (plus graph of neutron flux using Helium 3 tube)
• Aw-fetch software (New software for gathering rad. data over telephone) (See this link for RADIOLOGICAL application)
• Network Operation (Includes info. about a new program)
• Aw-Fast software (New software with one second or less Time Base Unit)
• Aw-Rand software (New random number generator)
• ALERTS (RADIOLOGIC EMERGENCIES - ALERTS)
• Aware's high flux monitors

Pages including User's data and text in addition to that which is on the remainder of this page:

• Interesting letters (One is about: Radioactivity in seaweed)
• Detecting Carbon-14 ( Question about RM-70 RM-80 as compared to RM-60)
• Muon project ( Cosmic Ray Project. Muons and their flux patterns)
• Gamma From Rain ( A User Wonders About Gamma From Rain-Snow) Note: This page has an interesting new graph showing activity of carbon impregnated filter paper after running 1000 cc of rainwater through it.
• A User's Mobile Setup
• Linux Code
• Steinar's USB to serial port Linux code and Dallas 1-wire bus

• John Walker's Linux Code for Random Numbers

  Realtime Northeast Wind Data:
  

• http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu/hrly/rwoem.html

  Investigate earthquake precursor signals: by Sam Stanifer
  

• Looking at the periodicity of soil gas radon
  
• Periodicity of Radon Emissions - the report

  Using an RM-60 and RM-80 to generate random numbers:
  

• John Walker's HotBits Random Numbers
• Dan rolls his own RM-60 software
  Also See:
  
• Aw-Rand software (New random number generator)

  Experiments for Nuclear Chemistry by Professor David A. Katz.
  "The object of this experiment is to understand the properties of radioactive substances including the difference between alpha, beta and gamma emitters, the concept of shielding, the effect of the Inverse Square Law, and some applications of nuclear chemistry"
  

• Click for Prof. Katz's 20chem.pdf file

  Professor R. Coisson has written a lesson on the Poisson process:
  

• Professor R. Coisson's "Acqusition and treatment of data from a Poisson process"

  St. Lawrence University Physics 152 "Measuring the Radioactivity of a Smoke Detector"
  

• http://it.stlawu.edu/~physics/labs/152_lab/smoke_detector.pdf

  Department of Physics, National University of Ireland Quantum Physics "Study of the Radioactive Decay of a Short-lived Radioactive Source"
  

• http://www.physics.ucc.ie/~thbusch/PY2052/Manuals.pdf

  Check out these interesting pages:
  

• Apparent Diurnal Variation in Background Radiation
  
• John Walker's HotBits Random Numbers

  Brian Fraser's Adventures in Energy Destruction (Brian believes in cold fussion?):
  

• Brian Fraser's page

  ---

• Earthquake Prediction ( Volcanologist's Experiences plus graph)
  

As regards using the RM-80 without the Fan-Filter for measuring Radon indirectly:

"In the tightened boreholes, radon in air concentrations were measured indirectly with Aware RM-80 Geiger-Mueller counters. Comparison with Alphaguard and Sarad radon monitors in the radon room at the Centre Universitaire and simultaneous measurements with a flow-through Radim radon monitor (Radim) in a borehole showed a very good correlation between radon concentrations and the gamma dosage from the Geiger counters. The sensibility and resolution of Radim radon monitors and Aware Geiger counters are similar. An advantage of the use of passive Geiger counters is ease of installation and the lack of active pumping with the resulting pressure perturbations in the borehole. Any influence of exterior factors such as temperature or atmospheric pressure can be neglected":

Influence of variable stress on underground radon concentrations.
Also found here:
Influence of variable stress on underground radon concentrations.

In addition see:
Real-time indoor radon exposure in the city of Zacatecas, Mexico.
Also found here:
Real-time indoor radon exposure in the city of Zacatecas, Mexico.

From: RAriniello@aol.com

Just wanted to let you know that the Alarm Software you sent worked perfectly. I used a Solid State relay (which our company happens to sell) and attached it to the RS-232 lines per your instructions. Once the average level hits my preset alarm value, my Radon mitigation fan turns on. This only happens several times per week during this time of year (mostly late at night) since we tend to have a lot of windows open. I was able to find a used 286 PC for $37 so I just dedicated it to this function. Anyway I now have a radon mitigation system that does not pull water under my basement slab since it is on so infrequently. Hopefully this will stop the slab movement which has been wrecking havoc with my finished basement. Thanks for your help.

Late addition. New add-on available: Solid State Relay Kit. Let Aware software and an IBM clone control your mitigation fan. Chop off those Radon peaks! For info about Alarm Software + Solid State Relay Kit, see bottom of price list Price List

June 26th, 2004
Mr. Boardman,

I thought you'd find this interesting. We lost a capsule on one of our balloon flights back in March 2002. It reached at least 77,000 feet. Well, 815 days of being in the desert and being exposed to rain, snow, and 100 degree days, we got the capsules back. I tested each RM-60 and they both work. There's a little corrosion on the screws and some discoloration on plastic, but other than that, they're fine.

Paul Verhage

At Kansas Near Space Project, we sent a RM-60 up to 90,200 feet. After talking to your tech support , we found how easy it was to run the RM-60 off our power supply and interface it to our balloon capsule's mircocontroller (Basic Stamp by Parallax).

At ground level (approx 1000 feet asl), we had 16 counts/min. At 60,000 feet we measured about 800 counts/min At 90,000 feet, counts dropped to about 600 counts/min

We believe we left behind secondary cosmic rays, and were entering the region of primary cosmic rays. On our next flight we'll have a servo place windows of differing materials over the RM-60 alpha window.

Later in December, we place a webpage of the program, including how we interfaced the RM-60 at:

http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/images/cc-images/Verhage-113.pdf
http://www.ksu.edu/humec/knsp/96ageig.htm
http://www.ksu.edu/humec/knsp/a2_code.htm

Thanks for the help and we look forward to some more interesting findings.

Lloyd Paul Verhage

More from Paul:

We're ready to launch another high altitude (90,000 feet we hope) balloon. This time we'll carry two RM-60's with a Coincidence Counter. The units will be placed one on top the other. This should own show us only high energy cosmic rays, with nothing from the sides.

Paul

For more info. about Aware Coincidence Box Decoder see Muon Detection at: Lesson Ideas text

More from Paul:

and our answer:
Dear Stewart,

Here is a picture of the RM-60 + H.P. 200LX
200LX + RM-60 photo
This combo (or H.P. 1000CX + RM-60) would be perfect. The 200 LX is like the 1000CX mentioned in last E-Mail but it has more memory and built-in programs.

Note the RM-60 is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and the 200LX and 1000CX will fit in a shirt pocket. They both fit in a small camera bag or small tummy pack. Total current draw from 200LX + RM is only ~20 milli-amps. External power for the 200LX can be 9 to 15 VDC but it also has built-in batteries so if external power is lost the system keeps runiing for several days from the two AA batteries inside the LX.

The system is very reliable. Note the RM-60 sent up on the Kansas Near Space Project ballon to 110,000 feet was not enclosed in an air-tight box but was exposed to the very low air pressure, with no problems. http://www.aw-el.com/users.htm

The PC will sound an alarm from built-in speaker if level rises above any set point you want. All data is also saved to RAM disk so any authority can review it, as-well-as examine the RM-60 - 200LX equipment.

To start system, one just turns it on or re-boots. It automatically starts plotting the new data set and saves to a new file with name made-up from system date-time. The PC will hold over a years data (or 5 - 10 years of continues minute by minute data with larger size RAM), so once every few years one can download the data from the LX to desktop PC.

You will find the graph display on the LX screen very interesting. One can see effects of every little rise or dip in altitude.

Best Regards / Bryan Boardman / Manager / Aware Electronics Corp.

Lionel Zuckier, MD
Nuclear Medicine Research Lab
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, NY 10461
phone: (718)-430-2605
email: zuckier@aecom.yu.edu

To test the RM-60-200LX combo, the MD plotted the decay of Tc-99m. Given a tube dead time of 50 micro seconds, the plot obtained is exactly what one would expect, indicating that even on a slow PC like the 200LX (CPU speed: 7 MHz), CPU dead time is a non-issue, even at high radiation levels. The graph shows two plots. One plot is the real data and the other plot is calculated data generated by Aware's MAKDECAY software package.

Other features verified by the testing: Good counts from the RM-60 above 10R/hr, (10,000,000 microR/hr.) even with a slow CPU as is in the H.P. 200LX. (80186 running at 7 mhz). RM-60's anti-saturation circuitry comes into play when power draw at very high radiation levels drops the serial port voltage, thereby maintaining a max'd out count rate.

A. Nohtomi Department of Nuclear Engineering, Kyushu University
Higashi-ku, Hakozaki 6-10-1
Fukuoka 812, Japan
e-mail : ntomitne@mbox.nc.kyushu-u.ac.jp

Dear Bryan Boardman

Thank you for your E-mail on my measurement. I send you those actual rad.data files with this reply mail. I am very glad if those will be appeared in your web site. Please include my e-mail address by the graph.

96Jul29.rad includes a typical change of radiation level during a flight between Fukuoka and Tokyo(HANEDA). Until now, I repeated many times such measurement between Fukuoka and Tokyo. The results show almost same tendency when the flight altitude is 11-12 km.

96Nov4 and 96Nov9 are those for the flight to LosAngels from Kansai international Airport at OSAKA. I noticed that the flight course of Nov9 is not the same that of Nov4. On the way to LA, we passed high latitude region near the north-pole. But on the back way to Japan, not. I asked my friend, who works at JAL, to get the records of flight altitude, latitude and longitude during the flights (JAL060 and 069). If I can obtain those data, I will examine the correlation of radiation level and such parameters.

In the data of 96Nov9, around 18:30, you'll notice a sharp peak. That is a noise which occurred when serial port plug was pulled out of the HP200LX socket. Another small peak around 19:30-20:30 corresponds to a flight from Kansai International Airport to Fukuoka. Because the flight altitude was rather low due to bad weather condition, about 7000m, the radiation level was lower than typical one.

Best Regards

Note: We prepared the above graph as follows. First we removed the sharp peak that occurred when serial port plug was pulled out, using a binary file editor. Next we adjusted the starting time of the files using MOD-HEAD.EXE (a utility included with each RM unit), so that all three plots would appear together. Next, as with all graphs on this web site, we used AW-GRAPH feature to generate a GIF file for placing on the Internet.

Many thanks for the goods (RM-80) which arrived on my desk at 9.30am last Monday, having been dispatched on Friday.

I am *extremely impressed* with the quality of your product, and your service...

We have already obtained some invaluable data, and I am passing your address to our medical physics department, and also to the University of East Anglia, of which I am a faculty member, in the hope that you will obtain future business from them.
...
Once again, many thanks for your past assistance and correspondence. Please keep me informed of any future products/developments, and feel free to pass my e-mail address on to any enquirers from the UK who would like to have an independent testimonial.

Regards, Hugo Baillie-Johnson "h.baillie-johnson" h@oncology.demon.co.uk

Hello,

Thought you might be interested in my experience in the first four day's of ownership of your model RM-70 and LCD-60 units.

I've yet to install the PC software and really put it through its assaying capabilities. However I've found the LCD-60 has allowed me to make some interesting measurements.

First, in your literature you answer a letter from a user suggesting that they try using a Brita tabletop water treatment filter as a way to test for Radon or other radioactive contaminants. When I attempted to measure a Brita filter that we had in use for a month I could not measure any level above background. Yet when I tested the whole house water filter down cellar I was able to record a level 50-63 uR/hr above background! The Brita was used with a faucet that supplied water ahead the whole house filter! The whole house filter was a pleated 5 micron paper filter that had been in service for three months. So it would appear that the Brita may not be a good way to test for water borne radioactive contamination. (Editor's note: Since the whole house filter strains all the water, not just the drinking water, it will be exposed to a far large quantity of radioactive isotopes).

Second, I used my new RM-70 to check on a client's new facility built into the basement of a wood framed office building. I checked the overall background count as well as checking the poured concrete walls and floors. In every instance I found nothing above normal background of approximately 15 cpm. This contrasts nicely albeit unfortunately with my own domicile where the background count in the cellar is approximately 1-2 uR/hr above outdoors. I also found that the concrete walls and floor of my cellar are approximately 5-7 uR/hr above background. I plan to set up an air filter test down cellar to see if I can find airborne radon daughters.

I also did a quick survey of CRT screens and found that modern color computer terminals exhibit a level 2/3 again above background, i.e., approximately 25 cpm measured flat against the face of a non operating CRT.
--Sincerely,

Ira A. Wilner
** WILNER ASSOCIATES **
Broadcast Engineering Services
Email: bdcst@vermontel.com
URL: http://www.vermontel.com/~bdcst

Since the above E-mail, Ira mentioned he had tested the Brita filter several hours after pouring water through it so perhaps any isotopes had decayed. More from Ira:

As for the Brita filter, I have not re-tested the Brita. So that remains to be seen. When I do get the opportunity to run a couple of pints through a Brita and test for emissions I'll email you the results.

Did I tell you that when I surveyed CRT screens at a client with over a dozen PC's I found the most radioactive models were older IBM PS-2's! They were typically 50% hotter than the other brands! And since the screens are the smallest of the lot operators tend to sit closer to them! ;-)
--Ira

Professor Bertil R.R. Person, Dept. of Radiation Physics, Lund University, University Hospital, S-221 85 LUND Sweden, recently sent us a fax in which he says: "I used my RM-60 with H.P. 200LX palm top computer in August during an expedition to the Russian uranium mines in Krasnokamensk. It worked beautifully continuously all the time. Now I am interested to order 2 sets of FAN-FILTER."

Recently Professor Tek Lim (University of California Berkeley, Nuclear Engineering, 1110 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720) said if he was building another reactor, he would specify RM-60s and RM- 80s for all area monitoring.

A system installed at State University of New York at Binghamton, P.O.B. 6000, Binghamton, New York, 13902-6000, by J.D. Brownridge, the radiation officer, uses four RM-60s and Aw-graph.exe, to monitor four locations on campus, with one XT computer. They also purchased Aw-alarms ($95) and Aw-phones ($95) which at night phones the officer at home if any of the locations has exceeded the dose- rate alarm set point, signaling the officer using beeps, with nothing more than the modem in the XT.

Recently a hospital installation in Italy uses four RM-70s, five RM-80s and two RM-60s to monitor different locations in the hospital, with the lab's computer. Also, each site has a jack so that the doctor can plug a LCD-60 into the jack, to observe the dose rate level at the site, without disturbing the lab's computer data-logging.

Roger W. Granlund, University Health Physicist at Pennsylvania State University, 228 Academic Projects Building, University Park, PA 16802, uses the RM-60 in conjunction with a Gelman type AE 25mm glass filter and a Thomas pressure/vacuum diaphragm air pump to plot relative radon levels. He states in his letter "As you can see from the graph the diurnal cycle of radon concentration is very apparent and even at outdoor concentrations the sensitivity is adequate" and "I am also planning to test the same appa ratus for some continuous air monitoring of the exhaust system for a nuclear medicine system".

Bryan, I figured that since you wrote the program (Makdecay) that you would get a kick out of these files (Craig2.zip).... I finished both the long and short filter charge time before the decay curve was taken.

NDECAY1.RAD Long (few days) filter charge.
NDECAY1.BAT Makdecay command line for above
DECAY1.RAD Makdecay output for above.

NDECAY2.RAD Short (4 hour) filter charge.
NDECAY2.BAT Makdecay command line for above
DECAY2.RAD Makdecay output for above.
I think you will quickly see that the long filter charge time allowed time for the Pb 212 to accumulate. This makes sense. Your Makdecay program allowed me to see what was there all along. Craig

Craig

Discussing your equipment last night (I printed several pages of your Web site), I was told that Atlantic prawns can concentrate polonium and a single prawn can survive with enough in it to kill a man! Maybe you can confirm this. In Scotland with all these disintegrating Russian nuclear subs not too far away I shall be passing the thing over my seafood.

Regards, George (Sassoon)

Can anyone confirm this? George's home page is http://home.aol.com/geosas.

More from George:

I have obtained the source of the story about the polonium-eating prawns. It comes from an Open University course-book entitled: Seawater: its composition, properties and behaviour (2nd Edn.) Pergamon Press 1995, ISBN 0-08-0425186 Authors: Brown, Evelyn; Colling, Angela; Park, Dave; et al. The Open University is a British institution for students working at home who wish to obtain degrees, and a friend of mine did their course in Oceanography. The courses are really quite tough.

On p. 122 the book says:

"Accumulation of polonium (a radioactive decay product of uranium-238) in prawns of the genus Gennadas , can result in their receiving alpha-radiation doses that are twice the lethal limit in humans"

Ref. my order, according to www.fedex.com it reached Stansted airport near London on Friday night. Now comes the slow last 100 miles!

Also from George:

In a message dated 25/10/96 01:21:31, you write:

>George T. Sassoon: 10 grams of fines of moderately rich uraninite (uranium
>ore): $10.00 plus $3.71 shipping. Sorry, no Visa or American Express.
>Payment by either bank draft or postal money order satisfactory. Sincerely,
>Ralph Merrill/Minerals Unlimited.

Dear Ralph -

Thanks for the ore which arrived yesterday (Wed. 6th), while we were enduring a power cut due to a force 12 hurricane the previous night. the Customs do not appear to have taken any interest in the package at all.

Some guests were in the kitchen playing Monopoly and drinking whisky. They said "What's that?" so I went and got the RM-80 and LCD-60, saying: "This is a Geiger Counter". I let it run for a moment or two at the background count of about 40/min., then held it briefly near the Camping Gaz butane lantern we were using for illumination, with its thorium-impregnated mantle. The count rose to a moderate chatter. I then held it against the unopened package and it became a scream.

The guests would not come out from uinder the kitchen table until I had put the package inside a roll of 1/8"-thick lead sheet. This did in fact reduce the count quite considerably.

So I had some fun with the ore, and now hope to do some serious experiments with it!

All the best, George.

I received the RM-80 on Tuesday - Thank you. Very nice unit - I just had to figure out how to turn on the com1 serial port on my IBM ThinkPad 750C. It took a run thru the setup diagnostics to wake it up. I normally use the PCMCIA modem. Your AW-SRAD works GREAT with OS/2 WARP in a DOS session.

From another ThinkPad user:

Brian:

I had trouble activating the serial port on the back of my ThinkPad 390E. I was finally able to activate it using the ThinkPad features utility by not skipping the step of clicking to view the back of the computer before changing the com ports settings. It appears these changes are not executed unless the view in the center of the screen is of the back -not front- of the computer. The sequence that worked was:

On the desktop, click on the ThinkPad icon, ThinkPad Features, back view of ThinkPad (at right), square wave pattern (bottom left), and select enable com1.

Dr. J. E. Schwabe
schwabe@atd.crane.navy.mil

I actually managed to get my RM-60 hooked up to my ancient Tandy model 100 laptop. I ended up connecting it the the "bar code reader" port---it's the only port available with an interrupt. It seems to work, although I was a little iffy on whether the RM-60 could handle TTL voltage levels (0 volts on NEGATIVE, 5 volts on positive, GROUND unconnected). But the documentation suggested that it works with parallel ports, so it should be o.k.

The Model 100 is rather nice for this application: it has an LCD screen with 8 lines of 40 characters. Each pixel is addressable, so you end up with a 64x240 pixel display---long and thin. Quite nice for a long bar graph. And people may be able to get hold of one cheap.
If you would like Carl's assembly language routine, email us and we will email it back to you...

I am a senior civil engineering student at the Universidad de las Americas-Puebla. As part of my thesis research project, I have to monitor, for radon, some aquifers of Mexico. The Universidad de las Americas has purchased by means of Dr. Jose Raynal, professor of the Civil Engineer department, l a RM-60 Micro-Roentgen Radiation Monitor. According to the information included in the owner manual, to monitor radon in water it is required to have special filter. So, I would like to know if you would be so kind as to help me by answering the following question I have:

1. Where can I get the special activated carbon filters used to measure radon in water.

I have June and July to make all the monitoring required, so I would really appreciate hearing from you soon. Because of some problem with the students E-mail addresses, I would like you to send a copy of your reply to my thesis' assessor Dr. Jose A. Raynal at jraynal@udlapvms.pue.udlap.mx. Finally I want to thank you for reading this letter.

Sincerely,

Pedro Astudillo

Pedro,

As regards the detection of Radon in water, one can use an activated charcoal filter system to concentrate Radon and Radon decay products, thereby allowing the RM-60,70 or 80 to detect the presence of these radioactive materials.

There are many different filter systems available for home use. For example, the Brita Water Filter System includes a one quart pitcher, with filter, into which you pour one quart of water. The water flows through a filter which collects 90% of lead, copper, etc. One could assume the filter would also collect 90% of Radon and daughters, since they are very similar to lead.

Now check the filter for beta-gamma emission. If you notice any increase in radioactivity, you can assume Radon is present in the water. You can then observe the decay curve and determine the percentage of Radon due to Uranium versus Thorium. (Please see are Web Site at http://www.aw-el.com).

Brita Water Filter System with one replaceable filter: $24 Brita Replacement Filter 3 pack: $19.98

Perhaps better for your application: Place one S&S black filter paper (activated charcoal impregnated, 9.0 cm diameter) into a Buchner funnel equipped with a suitable vacuum filtration flask and vacuum pump. (Vacuum pump could be Nalgene hand-operated vacuum pump). Filter one or more liters of water. Remove filter paper and mount RM-60 such that alpha-beta window is right above filter. Plot decay curve. Note: See above mentioned Gamma From Rain ( A User Wonders About Gamma From Rain-Snow)

Or: Place one liter of fresh water in bottle with 20 grams of activated charcoal. Shake for 30 seconds, then pour into a vacuum filter funnel with piece of standard filter paper to collect the charcoal. After filter paper is sucked free of excess water, remove from funnel and mount RM-60 such that alpha- beta window is right above filter. Plot decay curve.

Please visit your chemistry lab. for details about above. Look through chemistry lab supply catalogs for items mentioned above. For example, Aldrich Chemical Company (800-558-9160 or 414-273- 3850)

To experiment with your setup, purchase one or more bags of Uranium ore from Minerals Unlimited, P.O.B. 877, Ridgecrest CA 93556-0877, (619)-375-5279. Place ore in bottle of water. Wait several days then use water for testing your setup.

Please download RADDECAY program from the USERS page at our web site to learn more about Radon decay products.

From our MAKDECAY manual:

MAKDECAY is involved with two radioactive elements found in nature, and which decay into a series of radioactive daughter products, which finally decay into lead. These two elements are Uranium and Thorium. Both include a daughter product which is a gas at room temperature and pressure. Uranium decay chain includes Radon gas and Thorium decay chain includes Thoron gas. The health threat from these gases is presented when they are in the living space air and decay into radioactive daughter products which are solids at room temperature and pressure. When Radon or Thoron decay into solid radioactive daughters while in the air, these radioactive daughters cling to dust particles, which can then enter the lungs and lodge in body tissues.

If one collects these floating Radon and Thoron daughters on an air filter, and then observes the radioactivity of the filter, one will notice the radioactivity decay away over time, as the Radon and Thoron daughters decay into less radioactive materials.

The symbol for Radon is Rn-222. Its decay chain is as follows:
Rn-222 (Radon, Alpha emitter, half-life 3.82 days) ->
Po-218 (Alpha emitter, half-life 3.05 minutes) ->
Pb-214 (Radium B, Beta-Gamma emitter, half-life 26.8 minutes) ->
Bi-214 (Radium C, Beta-Gamma emitter, half-life 19.99 minutes) ->
Po-214 (Radium C' Alpha emitter, half-life 0.0000637 seconds)->
Pb-210 (Beta-Gamma emitter, half-life 22.26 years)

The symbol for Thoron gas is Rn-220. Its decay chain is as follows:
Rn-220 (Thoron, Alpha emitter, half-life 55.61 seconds)->
Po-216 (Alpha emitter, half-life 0.146 seconds)->
Pb-212 (Beta-Gamma emitter, half-life 10.64 hours)->
Bi-212 (Beta-Gamma emitter, half-life 60.55 minutes)->
Ti-208 and Po-212 (Ti-208: Beta-Gamma emitter, half-life 3.05 minutes, Po-212: Alpha emitter, half-life 0.000000298 seconds) ->
Stable

All for now

Bryan Boardman / Manager / Aware Electronics Corp.

Lynn,

Thank you very much for the order, which should ship today.

As regards PC emulator on MAC, the software works fine in the emulator. If the serial port is 100% IBM type, then it will work as well, but most MAC users will get hold of an old PC (perhaps $40 to $80) to run the RM system, saving the data direct to the floppy, then use the MAC to plot the data.

If you have PC emulator on the MAC running our software, just slip floppy from IBM into MAC, and data is re-plotted. If you do not have PC emulator on MAC, save rad data in ASCII format to floppy, then use MAC spreadsheet to plot data. Meanwhile, the old PC is running month after month, drawing less power than a light bulb. (Much less power draw in the case of an old PC laptop).

BUGS and PROGRESS

May 8th 2004 fixed a compiler optimization error within Aw-Radw's random number generation code. The new version is Aw-Radw 5.2a. See: Aw-Radw Updates

October 29th 2003 fixed a few minor memory allocation and handle errors within Aw-Radw. New version is Aw-Radw 4.9(m).

December 16th 2002 fixed a bug within Aw-Radw's DirectX Direct-Sound sub-system which on occasion caused a ddhelp.exe error. The error only effected the Geiger 'click' sound and had no effect on other aspects of the program.

January 11th 2002 noticed we were not including the AWLT.CHR font file for Aw-graph on our Aw-Graph distribution disk. This font file is used by Aw-graph when displaying small sized graphs. Needless to say we now include the font file on disk. If you purchased Aw-graph in the past and are missing the AWLT.CHR font file, you can downloaded it here:
Download Awlt.zip containing Awlt.chr small font file
Once downloaded unzip then place it in the same directory (folder) as that which contains Aw-Graph.exe

January 3rd 2002 a user let us know about a bug. When Aw-srad.exe was directed to store data to an ascii file, both the ascci file and the rad file where OK but the real time bar graph was showing half as many bars as it should. This bug has been fixed.

December 20th 2001 improved Aw-graph's ability to reject loading a non-rad file when directed from the command line to load and display the most recent rad file, as in "Aw-graph -D*.*". Also noticed a small problem running under Windows. When a user switched from full-screen mode to Windowed mode while displaying a graph (by using Window's ALT-Enter Hot Key) Windows would stop sending keystrokes to the program even after switching back to full screen mode. This has been fixed.

Shortly after June 2001 we noticed our June 18th fix was preventing the program from detecting Ms-Dos. The programs acted as though they were always running under windows. This was a minor problem and has been fixed.

June 18th 2001 Noticed all Aware Electronics programs (including Aw-srad.exe and Aw-graph.exe) were not detecting the presence of WIN NT or WIN 2000. This has been fixed and all programs work very much better under these two OSs.

Sept. 10th 1999 Noticed in LX to RM Plus cable set (only applies to users with H.P.'s 200LX Palm Top PCs and our cable-adapter which allows transfer of data from LX to PC) the adapters for data transfer were wired wrong (our adpater supplier had changed the internal wire colors). If your Data LX to PC adapter is blue color, then it might be one of these. If you have trouble using Lap Link with our LX to PC Plus cable, let us know and we will send you new adapters.

Febuary-8-1999 Noticed when we added the ASCII out function to Aw-srad.exe we moved part of the program code below a section that applies the calibration factor for the ALARM and the ASCII out. We did this on January-9-1999. Therefore Aw-srad.exe dated between January-9-1999 and Febuary-7-1999 does not apply the calibration factor to the ALARM as well as the ASCII out. The ALARM and ASCII out remained just the raw count number which means if you get say 2 hits in a TBU, the program would ASCII OUT a 2 and compare user's alarm setting to 2, then apply the calb which might convert it to say 12 and then print to screen 12.

We have now fixed this. (Febuary-8-1999; AW-SRAD Version 3.6b) You should get an update! (E-mail us and we can E-mail it to you as an attached file).

August-10-1998 Noticed AW-SRAD and AW-GRAPH delay routines affected by WIN 98. See:
MS Windows Operation

July-10-1998 Noticed AW-SRAD was not turning on IRQ 2 or IRQ 9 when selected. This has been fixed. (IRQ 2 to 15 can be used).

April-4-1998 AW-GRAPH was not including the "Average per Curve" box when printing a graph. Fixed (version 2.8)

Mar-23-98 AW-GRAPH was not scaling plot when both Interpolation and Regression functions where active in auto-refresh mode. Fixed (version 2.7m).

Jan-6-98 we noticed AW-SRAD bug when choosing IRQs above IRQ 8, introduced with a previous addition we made to the program. This has been fixed.

Feb-20-97 noticed AW-AUTOT.COM does not add a path to the filename it creates for the TSR program. If the PC's default directory is changed, the TSR will not know where the file is. This is fixed.

Jan-17-97 fixed AW-GRAPH polynomial function bug wherein bug gave message FATAL FLOATING POINT MATH ERROR. Also increased polynomial's maximum degree of freedom from 6 to 9.

Nov-13-96 we noticed AW-SRAD.EXE refresh mode does not stay in refresh mode, introduced with a previous addition we made to the program. This has been fixed.

Nov-4-96 Note to MAKDECAY users. We found a bug in MAKDECAY.EXE. It was compiled as a tiny model, which can cause problems with floating point math. We re-compiled.

June 4th 2004 Aw-Graph version 4.7j increases by 5X the number of points within a plot that Aw-Graph can display.

March 17th 2003 added a random number generator to Aw-Radw which uses the random nature of the radiation 'hits' to trigger a scan of the CPU clock counter which is then used to generate the random numbers. This feature was updated May 8th 2004. See: Aware's New Aw-Radw Program

December 16th 2002 fixed a bug within Aw-Radw's DirectX Direct-Sound sub-system which on occasion caused a ddhelp.exe error.

December 9th 2002 added several new features to the Aw-Radw 32 bit Windows program including a real time running average graph.

November 8th 2002 greatly improved the speed of the Aw-Srad dos program when loading a file for viewing while running under Windows. The same improvement is included within Aw-Radw's Aw-fast scrolling bar-chart window.

November 4th 2002 added several additional features to the Aw-Radw 32 bit Windows program including Direct-X sound as-well-as additional command line arguments for auto start-up. New Accelerator keys have been added. Also a 'Trigger External Program Every X points" has been added.

March 11th 2002 added a new Command Line Argument to Aw-Radw for auto generation of GIF files under Windows. See the link to Aw-Radw Help File which can be found on this page:
Aware's New Aw-Radw Program

December 20th 2001 improved Aw-graph's ability to reject loading a non-rad file when directed from the command line to load and display the most recent rad file, as in "Aw-graph -D*.*". Also, as mentioned above under Bugs, noticed a small problem running under Windows. When a user switched from full-screen mode to Windowed mode while displaying a graph (by using Window's ALT-Enter Hot Key) Windows would stop sending keystrokes to the program even after switching back to full screen mode. This has been fixed.

November 2001 added three additional color selections to Aw-graph's Color Selection menu namely: Black on Gray-White, Gray-White on Black and Default Aware Colors. This allows the user to change all the colors as above with one key stroke and is handy for printing or to place in Window's Clip Board. (A deeply colored graph uses a lot of colored ink. Also, when Windows sends a graphics image to the printer it prints black as black and white as white but Ms-Dos mode prints black as white and white as black). We also added an additional menu item to the graphics mode menu which allows the user quick access to the color selection menu while displaying a graph.

Shortly after June 2001 we noticed our June 18th fix was preventing the program from detecting Ms-Dos. The programs acted as though they were always running under windows. This was a minor problem and has been fixed.

June 18th 2001 Added time slice release code in Aw-srad's and Aw-graph's time delay - get key strike routines which greatly aids in the smooth operation under multi-tasking OSs such as WIN 95-98-ME and WIN NT-2000.

June 18th 2001 Noticed all Aware Electronics programs (including Aw-srad.exe and Aw-graph.exe) were not detecting the presence of WIN NT or WIN 2000. This has been fixed and all programs work very much better under these two OSs.

Oct. 24th 2000 We added a new keypress arg. to AW-SRAD and AW-GRAPH.
For info. click here: New Args

Nov. 27th 1999 Added file Copy-Rename-Delete-Edit function to AW-SRAD.EXE. Nice especially if running the software on a PC with limited resources. It allows one to easily copy, rename, move or delete a highlighted file from Aw-srad's file-selection screen and also to branch to an editor with the filename as an argument. We now include a small text editor (AW-EDIT.EXE) in case a user has no text editor. AW-EDIT is very simple but an added feature: It will edit read only - hidden - system files (for example msdos.sys file is a read only - hidden - system file) without having to change the file attribute. It also maintains the file attribute (if you save the file). (AW-SRAD.EXE file selection screen shows all read only - hidden - system files as-well-as all standard files). This can be handy. For example one can easily add the lines:

[Options]
Logo=0
BootGUI=0

to the top of one's c:\msdos.sys file which tells WIN 95-98 please boot right to the DOS prompt. (To start Windows you just type WIN(enter) at the DOS prompt.)

July 1999 Added AW-MRAD.COM TSR count that removes pop-up window after 20 points. Also modified AW-SRAD.EXE's configuring of AW-AUTO.COM and AW-AUTOT.COM such that it reads from the target AW-AUTO.COM the message user had entered previously then presents that as default.

June 1999 Shrunk all EXE programs (including AW-SRAD.EXE and AW-GRAPH.EXE) so now they take up approx. 50% less disk space. Added NUL device detect to AW-MRAD.COM TSR in which case it doesn't write the data to the device. Also added filename switch to AW-MRAD.COM TSR so one can start it from the command line prompt. Also added -n(TSR-NAME) command line switch to AW-SRAD.EXE so it will launch another TSR rather than default AW-MRAD.COM. Also AW-GRAPH get most recent rad. file function will warn if it finds a file more recent then system date-time.

January-27-1999 AW-SRAD version 3.6a released. It includes an improved plot refresh technique. When "auto-refresh" viewing a plot of rad. data set generated by another copy of the program or the TSR, AW-SRAD now loads just the additional data from the file needed to update the plot rather than re-loading the entire file. This reduces network traffic when "auto-refresh" viewing a data set generating on another workstation on the net. See:
Network Operation (Includes info. about a new program)

January-14-1999 We added two new command line args. to AW-SRAD for generating ASCII out file. For more info, click here: New AW-SRAD Arg

April-6-1998 AW-GRAPH, added new curve symbols for a total of 48. Also added ability to choose a distinct symbol for each curve. Useful, for example, when displaying two or more curves, with a superimposed curve containing special "marked" points, wherein the superimposed curve has a "blank" plot style but with large X for symbols, such that the large X symbols appear superimposed on top of the underlying plot(s).

Mar-28-1998 AW-GRAPH.EXE (version 2.8)
All major X-axis divisions are now labeled. To make room for the Date-Time codes for each division, if there are more than 5, an X-axis label stagger option for 1, 2, 3, or 4 rows has been added, so for 10 divisions on X-axis, with a long Date-Time string, one can choose an X-axis stagger option of 4 rows, which is enough to prevent one Date-Time label from overwriting part of another.

Mar-27-1998 New Items added to AW-GRAPH.EXE (version 2.7n):
NUMBER OF SYMBOLS PER CURVE
Allows a distinct number of symbols per curve. If you don't want any symbols drawn on top of a curve's plot, you can set this to 0, although perhaps setting this to 1 is better in that the curve will have at least one symbol at the start of the curve's plot, which will match curve Legend symbol. Menu: "Make Graph" "More Options" "Number of Symbols per Curve"
CURVES LINE STYLE
AW-GRAPH: Added Blank style for curve plot(s) in case user wants only symbols displayed.
REFRESH CYCLE
User can set refresh cycle delay in seconds, in case file is on a floppy or network drive and user wants to minimize drive access.

Mar-19-98 AW-SRAD (version 3.7j) now remembers if user turned alarm off-on and/or beep off-on between sessions. Also improved both AW-SRAD and AW-GRAPH checksum on user setup data routine (programs were asking to save setup even if user had already saved setup).

Dec-21-97 Changed AW-GRAPH (version 2.7j) calibration factor to a real (floating point) number. AW-GRAPH now calculates all TBU (Time Base Unit) calibration factors based on the 60 sec. TBU.

Nov-17-97 added feature to AW-GRAPH (version 2.7g) wherein when exporting data to a file, the plot's X-min, X-max, Y-min and Y-max are stored in the exported file's header which allows AW-GRAPH to reset the scale of the plot next time it is viewed. For example, if one loads a rad file, zooms in on a section of interest, then exports the data to a file, next time the exported file is loaded into AW-GRAPH for viewing, the user can opt to plot the data with the scale used when the file was exported.

More additions to AW-GRAPH. We added a feature to the regression function. One can direct the regression function to act on all the data in memory, or just the data displayed on screen. This is nice in that if you Zoom in on an interesting part of a curve, the regression function will model the data contained in just the Zoomed in portion.

Another new feature: One can tell Aw-graph to load files by way of a command line switch, and without prompting, Aw-graph loads the file(s) and enters refresh mode. Another new command line switch tells Aw-graph to load files listed in an ASCII file then enter refresh mode.

Also, if the "message" string in a rad file includes L=Label, Label will be used as the curve label by Aw-graph. The message before L= will be used by Aw-graph for the title. This is nice in that you can configure Aw-auto(t) to include a message like "Complex 123 L=Cave 1" then start Aw-auto, then load the file for viewing with Aw-graph. The plot will include the title: Complex 123 and the curve label will be Cave 1.

Also Aw-graph will load a rad file with zero points. This allows automatic start-up of one or more RM system data collections with auto-refresh graphics plot display, without the need to wait for at least one point per curve to be stored in the rad. file before entering the auto-refresh mode. Example: Two RMs are plugged into one PC. Make two sub-dirs (for example C:\AWARE\RAD1; C:\AWARE\RAD2), one for each RM. Place a copy of Aw-autot in each sub-dir. Write a batch file containing:
C:
CD \AWARE\RAD1
AUTOT
CD \AWARE\RAD2
AUTOT
CD \AWARE
AW-GRAPH -R\AWARE\RAD1\*.*;\AWARE\RAD2\*.*

When the batch file is executed (even from AUTOEXEC.BAT) AUTOT will start collecting rad data from each RM, into two distinct rad files with file names generated from system date-time, then AW-GRAPH will start, plotting both rad files, in Auto-Refresh mode.

Progress for H.P.'s LX200 palm top PC users. We modified all the software such that it issues cursor goto commands when navigating through menus, prompt boxes, etc., so if you are operating the LX in text mode ZOOM, the LX will auto shift the location of the zoom window such that the menu, prompt, etc., remains in view. Helps with eye strain!

RAD2000.ZIP Click here if you have already downloaded RADDECAY.ZIP in the past and would like to download just the added RAD2000.EXE and READ2000.TXT file (see below).

Please note since year 2000 we added a small additional program to the RADDECAY.ZIP file and also added the following READ2000.TXT file:

Aware Electronics users please note: RADDECAY.EXE is a freeware program we found on the web. It is an old program but is never-the-less very useful.

We noticed after year 2000 RADDECAY does not load. It must have a useless piece of code in it that checks the system date for no reason but if the date is +1999 RADDECAY.EXE refuses to load.

Therefore we wrote a small loader program for RADDECAY.EXE named RAD2000.EXE. To use RADDECAY after the year 1999, type RAD2000(enter) instead of RADDECAY(enter). (Make sure RAD2000.EXE is in the same directory (folder) that RADDECAY.EXE is).

This is how RAD2000 works: RAD2000 issues a system call to run RADDECAY.EXE. While RADDECAY.EXE is running if RADDECAY.EXE asks for system date, RAD2000 tells it that the date is Jan. 1st 1999.

After the user exits RADDECAY, RAD2000.EXE regains full control, resets system Date code handler to the system's code, then exits as normal.

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