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Show P3 1 he B4 Z inuft-- 3 ttbfpnihntt Thursday, July 11 , 2002 Rugged Babbel Counter used in backcountry prospecting by Harold Babcock guest xiixkcJ oa We re over 6x6, 6x8 bouxe lo Crest fox sheds, txbiiu, etc. Clail today & vtvoadx! weTl Saul hut I og I lomo hxx Make a Deal! play limiltJ quxiUilv of 3x8 A Si 3x6 Siding Homes Saiturwhi tl: Log - mu iki t 528-500- hup 7wvvvv vaucrw Ai x -- 1 (435) ixhomey mm 882-461- 5 r 1 1 si-- . hue-lo- g 3 Pan 22M Il W1D1 t R1 Al) r.- - SJ C rr v Ask your local paper how you can reach over 250,000 households in 40 Utah newspapers in one easy step through Utah Press Association statewide 2x2 (2 col x 2 in ) display network. 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Manuai searr Lies are free! Or. subscribe to Smart Searr h and receive daily delivery of local and or statewide legal notices of vital importance to your ..... Go to: www.utahlegalnotices.com service of the Utah Press Association and your local newspaper A Defense workers, such counters as the miners required were not on the marhad no direct conwith nections designers or manufacturers of like equipment, they sought out the assistance of Gordon Babbel. As they LSL(i M I WORK OWNER-OPERATOR- likes of which were not available to them As manufacturers of such instruments catered only to the needs of Civil ket. Ilt ui ! Srn:ui)h!!! tiKoi c.n Voi k Local riter The early day uranium miners of Moab, Monticello, and Blandmg had need for a versatile Geiger counter, the The versatile Babbel Counter, was developed by Moab resi- Gordon was no electronic engineer by any stretch of the imagination, lie worked in a radio repair shop in Moab, but he was willing to listen to the miners needs and went all out to attempt to fulfill them to the best of his ability. He started by learning all he could about the circuitry of the instruments in use, and studied how they could be modified to 611 the needs of his customers. With an associate by the name of Orb Wiggle, he developed what they called the Babbel-Wiggl- e Counter. It was little improvement over existing counters, but it was a start. Then he lucked out and got access to a circuit that could be adapted to his needs. From this he developed the first true Babbel Counter, the Model 600. As the counter would be used in a rugged environment, he provided it with a steel case. Civil Defense counters and scintillators were all calibrated so that their meters would read out in milliroent-gen- s per hour. This meant little to the miners. As the Atomic Energy Commission paid for ore based on the percentage of uranium it contained, it was to their advantage to establish as close as possible this percentage of the ores content before shipping. Ore received by the Atomic Energy Commission at above or below twenty hundredths of one percent was subject to a fine, so grading was of great importance. By the use of a secondary standard to calibrate his counters to, Babbel provided a means for main- taining reasonable tolerance in grading the ore. When the counter was calibrated, the meters now read out in hundredths of one percent instead of mrhr. A cable of more than a few feet in length between a regular Geiger counter and its probe seriously depletes the sensitivity, bo Gordon developed impedance matching circuitry that would allow the use of 1,000 or more feet of probe cable. Since drill holes as small as one inch in diameter were to be probed, Gordon, assisted by his machinist brother Ted, built deep hole probes of 78" in diameter. Reels containing 500 or 1,000 feet of cable were developed with footage counters that would indicate the depth of the probe in a drill hole. Because drill holes usually contain water, probes containing the Geiger tube had to be Bealed to withstand the pressure of any depth of water that might be encound tered. And as volts DC is required to operate a Geiger tube, so proper insulation must also be proNine-hundre- vided. When the Model 600 showed promise of a future, Babbel left Moab for Grand Junction, where he went into partnership with others at Minerals Engineering. There they produced the Model 600-But Gordon, wanting to be more independent, soon took off and founded Uranium Engineering, where he continued to produce the 600-A- . As no patents were involved, Miner- als Engineering was not restricted from continuing to produce the unit they called the 600-B- . Horizontal holes within a dent Gordon Babbel in a radio shop where he worked in Moab. It quickly met the needs of prospectors and miners who flocked to Moab during its fabled Uranium Boom. A crew lowers a probe into a drill hole which fed information back to the Babbel Counter on the surface. Portable drill rigs like the one in the background were used around Moab by the hundreds. mine also have to be probed to determine if it will be worthwhile to dig a drift in the direction probed, so a special adapter probe with a screw-oon the cable end for fastening a plastic hose to the probe was developed. The cable was run through this hose. Probes of this sort with from 10 to 150 feet of hose n semi-rigi- . d were built. The housing of the probe mounted on the front of the Babbel Counter could also be used with a short extension cable. By slipping a special lead shield over the Geiger probe, the facing of a wall within a mine could be scanned. The shield was open only on the side applied to the wall. probes were also to required grade a pile or a carload of ore. These probes had a Geiger tube near the tip, and a cable running to the counter. By stabbing them into the ore pile at various places, the average content of the pile could be established. Because probing into a rough rock pile would eat up the tip of the probe in a short time, stainless steel construction was a must. If recordings of the logging of a drill hole were desired, a stripchart recorder could be used with the Babbel Counter. the Babbel Monitoring Counter without keeping your eyes glued to the meter was made easier by the speaker contained therein. Gordon was now swamped by the enormity of the hours of work required to attempt to supply the demand of the uranium boom. Before long he put the company up for sale. Col. T. R. Gillenwaters, a Los Angeles promoter, took him up and bought him out. Gordon was retained for a time as a consultant. The Colonel gineer in Denver, Loyd Wilson, who just happened to be available, so Loyd was whisked to the scene. Of course an engineer whose profession is setting up radio towers and transmitters cannot be expected to know much about the unique demands of Geiger counter circuitry. So Gordon was drafted to give Loyd a crash course in what knowledge he could impart. A few of the production line ladies were talked into returning, so production resumed. But Gordon was not hip to the design of the Model 610, so its discrepancies would have to be learned over time, and hundreds of 610s were produced before the simpler bugs could be eliminated. As little time was available to work out the proper modifications necessary, the majority of them were never corrected. Maintenance of the hundreds of units old and new then being used in the field, was a full- - fitenFifl6inil& QannqpiB Licensedlnsured Contractor free estimates- Construction Handyman Decks Patios time job by itself. Loyd soon acquired the assistance of a radio technician who innocently walked in off the street one day looking for work. Little did I know what was in store for me. 1 knew about as much about Geiger counters as Loyd did. It took six months before the backlog of counters on the maintenance shelf was caught up. I got my first vacation two years later. The greatest problem common to all Babbel Counters was the fact that tube was one used to accomplish three functions. As a result, complete individual control of each function was not possible, the result being that the response of the meter circuit was not linear. Despite its imperfections, the uniqueness and versatility of the Babbel Counter served the drillers and miners of the Colorado Plateau and other areas in their time of need. multi-purpos- e miyyh I Alan C. Jensen, D.D.S., M.S. FiT7ri7" L 570 W. 400 N. Moab, UT 84532 Call for an flioirimen Painting Texturing Concrete Stamped Stucco Framing Will Be in Moab Dry Wall Remodeling Renovation Sheds Storage Areas 2592562 PleaseJeavejmessae July 18 & Aug. 15 thought that the counter could stand a bit of modernizing, so he hired a pair of engineers from Phoenix to develop a new unit, the Model 610. They made some improvements that lightened the unit some- what, but they had more in mind. At the end of 1954, with the Model 610 now in production, the engineers walked out, taking the production line ladies and the customer mailing list with them in order to set up a company of their own, Atomic Engineering Corp. They had managed to leave a few calculated bugs in the Model 610. They went on to manufacture their own version of the counter and associated equipment minus the bugs of course. The boom was nearing its height, and Uranium Engineering was without engineers or a production line. Someone knew of a radio en- - r' i lPO |