Modification to the Automatic Ionization Chamber

Abstract

The automatic ionization chamber has been described previously [1,2]. It has proven quite reliable in service and has many desirable features, especially for balloon-borne equipment. A disadvantage has been that the time of discharge was dependent upon the potential applied to the quartz fiber. Thus, during the comparison of the instrument to be used with the standards, careful measurement of the potential used on the standards was required. Furthermore, care was required to make sure that the battery used during the flight remained constant in potential. It has now been found that the time between rechargings can be made nearly independent of the potential of the fiber by inserting a metal conductor inside and insulating it from the outer conductor surrounding the quartz fiber, and making the potential of this inner conductor the same as that of the fiber.