Bladewerx announces New Personal Alpha Air Monitor

 

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 20 September, 2003--Bladewerx announced the SabreBZM Breathing Zone Monitor, the industry's first 'wearable' alpha air monitor.

"The alpha air monitoring community is familiar with lapel air samplers, and they are familiar with fixed alpha air monitors, but SabreBZM is the first instrument to put a high sensitivity alpha air monitor on the lapel!" said David Baltz, Chief Technologist for Bladewerx.

Weighing just two and a half pounds and housed in a belt pack or worn over the shoulder like a conventional lapel sampling pump, the SabreBZM incorporates an umbilical to a sampling head that can be clipped to the wearer's lapel, enabling direct monitoring of the worker's breathing space. The capability provides very accurate worker dose assessment but, unlike a lapel air sampler, does so real-time, using voice annunciation to alert the user to current dose and any alarms.

For its processing horsepower, the SabreBZM uses a 400MHz Intel X-Scale based PocketPC. Data-logging of status changes, acute and chronic readings, and spectrum history are recorded on the PocketPC for later analysis.

In addition, a wireless RadNet option adds RadNet compliance to the SabreBZM. Using wireless 802.11 networking with a usable range of up to 300 feet, the instrument can report readings and spectrums to a workstation or laptop computer running a RadNet Client application.

SabreBZM sensitivity and alarm response times are equal to any alpha air monitors on the market.

"Because SabreBZM utilizes a state-of-the-art isotope peak-fitting algorithm, the instrument's response time to moderate concentration levels of Pu-239 is outstanding," said a Certified Heath Physicist at a national lab who did beta testing on the instrument." Had the Bladewerx SabreBZM been included during the CAM evaluation we performed in 2002, it would have been clearly superior to the other models in response time!"

The list price of Bladewerx SabreBZM is $5000. The RadNet Option is $750. Shipments will begin in October 2003.

Bladewerx, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico provides instrumentation and custom software for the radiation health safety industry. It was founded in 2001.

For further information, contact Bladewerx at (505) 892-5144 or info@bladewerx.com.