General Electric Radiation Monitor (ca.1952 - 1955) |
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The GE
Radiation Monitor, Model 4SN11A3, seems to have been introduced in 1952.
An earlier version, the Model 4SN11A2, dates at least from 1950. It served as a
self-contained portable monitor that didn’t require batteries or an
external power supply. The exposure was determined by the
position of the pointer on the front of the unit. The pointer,
sandwiched between two “voltmeter” plates, is attached to a taut wire
suspension that runs vertically along the central axis of the unit. The
pointer and plates were charged by turning the monitor upside down. The
electrostatic charge was generated by the movement of mercury in a glass
tube. A toggle switch on top of the unit was used to zero the pointer. Quoting a December 1950 AP press story: "A new detector makes it possible for atomic workers to tell at a glance the amount of radiation in an area. It will warn of hazards in time for the workers to escape serious exposure, the General Electric Company said yesterday. The device, known as a "radiation monitor," weighs less than a pound and is about the size of a quart oil can." The
radiologist and employee of the General Electric Company, Dale Trout,
described what led him to develop this instrument: .“I became aware of
the fact that two things always seemed to happen [with radiation
detectors]. The batteries were dead and somebody had lost the
instructions. So George Shulte and I who were interested in this [field
of] radiation protection, made an instrument which we thought was a great
one; and, boy, we lost our shirts on it . . .
The reading element was a quadrant electrometer. . . We charged it
by rolling a bubble of mercury down an evacuated tube; we didn’t have
any batteries to run down you see, and we put the instructions on the
inside of the chamber. To do away with the instructions, you had to bust
it . .
. We sold these things
for $39.50 and believe me, they fell flat. Two things I’m sure happened.
No health physicist would be caught having his picture taken without a
cutie-pie . . . [and] nobody
believed that you could make anything for $39.50 that would work . . .
we scrapped 3,000 of them.” Trout,
D., in Health Physics: A Backward Glance (1980), ed. Kathren, R.
and Ziemer, P. Pergamon Press, 1980 Advertisement of the model 4SN11A2 monitor in the December 1950 issue of Nucleonics (page 87) Advertisement for the model 4SN11A3 monitor in the August 1952 issue of Nucleonics (page 6). AP. New Radiation
Detector. Appeared in the Syracuse Herald Journal, December 14, 1950. General Electric Catalog. X-ray Supplies and Accessories. 1953-1954. |
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