From: Douglas Sinclair <dsinclai@acs.ucalgary.ca>
Yup, the 3 microcurie source makes sense. With a pair of diodes we could make the detector 4 pi, but no big deal. 3 microcuries is not a problem health-wise as long as you don't eat it. As it's an alpha source, any shiledingor even a few centimeters of air will stop the rays. Howerver, I just encountered a new angle on it. According to my father, that's on the order of $100 worth of radium :(. If we're willing to go with a much slower source, we can use thorium which is only $2 per gram or so. Alternativly, anyone have an old clock with a radium dial? <grin>
BTW: Cosmic ray background is only 1 event per square foot per minute. Plus, they occur in showers. So that isn't going to work.
Why not just go with the Newbridge Micro hardware RNG that we've discussed several times in the past? Its only $50 for a 20kbit/sec output rate. Perry