Spinthariscopes, scintillators, etc...

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

Whilest meandering the web, I found a reference that said that the
phosphor from a black and white TV set is a mixture of two phosphors, one
of which is a silver-activated ZnS that responds to radiation.  I'm going
to sacrifice one of my old B&W tv's to see for myself how it works, but
can anyone confirm or deny this, and does anyone know how much phosphor is
actually used in a typical portable TV picture tube?  I DO know that the
silver-activated phosphor by itself is very expensive, and if old, dead
B&W tv's have enough to to make it worth destroying them, they would be a
great source of very cheap phosphor material for your scintillators or
whatever.

Steve