Patent ID: 8173954

Claim:
A detector comprising: a sonde having a housing and comprising: a scintillator disposed within the housing; a calibration source coupled to the scintillator configured to fluoresce the scintillator at a known wavelength of electromagnetic radiation; an electromagnetic radiation sensing device coupled to the scintillator and disposed within the housing; and a first programmable/re-programmable processing module (PRPM) coupled to the electromagnetic radiation sensing device and disposed within the housing, wherein the PRPM is programmed to process signals from the electromagnetic sensing device based on a user-defined analysis mode selected from the group of modes consisting of: i) filtering, wherein filtering includes using at least two threshold values and removing a portion of the signals from the electromagnetic radiation sensing device; ii), windowing, wherein windowing includes using multiple threshold values to remove portions of the signals from the electromagnetic radiation sensing device and keeping portions of the signals within at least two different predetermined ranges; and iii) discriminating, wherein discriminating includes discriminating between at least two different signals from the electromagnetic radiation sensing device derived from two different types of radiation detected by the scintillator.