Monitoring for radon in water

This article focuses on radionuclides elements of interest to utilities and consumers alike. Each of these groups may be interested in a low-cost radiation detector that can be connected to a laptop or desktop computer through either the serial or the parallel port. A complete set of software comes with the detector, and a detailed manual describes operation of the program and discusses the various forms of common radiation sources in a home. Computer programs can run in the foreground and display a scrolling bar chart or in the background while the incoming data are logged, so the user can continue to work on the computer. Data are automatically stored on a disk file. Data collection times can be set for minutes, hours, days, or weeks, thus allowing long-term trends to be identified. The detector can be connected to the computer by a modular telephone cable and can be placed as far away as several hundred feet. Utilities that use surface water supplies are unlikely to detect any radon. Only those plants that use groundwater supplies from areas where radioactive materials are in the ground will have some radon in the water