Dealing with temperature drift in PRA

[Conor Whyte]

I have been getting familiar with PRA 22 over the past several weeks. I have had a great deal of success getting clear spectra from this program.
I have but 2 issues with the software.

1. There seems to be no way of saving calibration in PRA like Theremino MCA.
2. How does one compensate for temperature drift? Do any of you have a technique?

[pilgrim]

For the point 1 if I click on SETTING -> SAVE SETTINGS AS, PRA saves the calibration.
For the point 2 the only solution I thought is to take spectra in the basement, where the temperature is more constant comparing with the rest of the house.
Moreover the background radiation is lower, thanks to the floor thickness over my head :-)

[Conor Whyte]

I was able to save the .ini file but when I tried to re-establish the settings, I couldn't get back the calibration settings.
I am going to have to play with PRA some more... maybe I've got a permissions issue on the file.

The temperature shift idea is a pretty good suggestion. I will try that.
another thing I will need to do is to create a Pb castle with copper shielding to cut down the xrays.

[pilgrim]

another thing I will need to do is to create a Pb castle with copper shielding to cut down the xrays.

This is very important, makes the difference!

Concerning PRA, if you simply click on SETTING -> SAVE SETTINGS, you'll find your current settings as default next time you run PRA.

[cicastol]

Temperature drift is the biggest problem for long time integration, a simple workaround is a passive Thermal stabilization by means of taking mesurements in area with low thermal excursion or better using thermal insulation around lead shield .
As i said before(in PRA 19.0 relase comments) the final solution for Thermal drift is:

Next big step could be the implementation of centroid peak tracking techniques for temperature drift compensation, this will really a cool add , improving resolution on long sampling time.

Thanks Marek!

[Sebastien_billard]

I am not familiar with PRA but in Beqmoni I was said that the "b" parameter of the calibration equation allows to adjust shifts in temperature. My experience tends to confirm this.

[Conor Whyte]

How hard would it be to add a centroid peak thermal drift monitoring/compensation to PRA or Theremino MCA?