New techniques of low level environmental radiation monitoring at JLab

We present the first long-term environmental radiation monitoring results obtained using the technique of pulse mode readout for the industry-standard Reuter-Stokes RSS-1013 argon-filled high pressure ionization chambers (HPIC). With novel designs for the front-end electronics readout and customized signal processing algorithms, we are capable of detecting individual events of gas ionization in the HPIC, caused by interactions of gammas and charged particles in the gas. The technique provides enough spectroscopic information to distinguish between several different types of environmental and man-made radiation. The technique also achieves a high degree of sensitivity and stability of the data, allowing long-term environmental radiation monitoring with unprecedented precision.