Good afternoon, John:
You are indeed correct that I need training - I have been asking for it since I started here, but they have not followed through with it. I am supposed to be taking the next 2 weeks or so to figure it all out ( a bit over optimistic, perhaps).
The normal range of the spectrometer with the PETJ crystal is 68 to 259 mm (L-value), and it has no other limit restrictions on it. I think it did try to do a second scan after the first message came up.
I apologize for the poor communication on my part - the software didn't print out an error regarding the Start and Stop peaks, rather it printed out this message (copied and pasted from the main screen):
ROM Brent's Maxima Peak Center Results (cps):
Element Spectr Peaked StartPk StopPk Offset StartI StopI StartPB StopPB
k ka 1 PETJ Yes 119.776 119.776
In most spectroemters, you would expect K Ka to be around 119, but on our probe, that channel has always given us trouble, so we've had to operate with a work-around (it's a long, sordid saga).
When I click on K Ka in the Peak/Scan options window, no warnings come up, and the Peaking/ROM Start Size is 0.152075 - I will try with a larger value, as you suggest.
I also tried under Peaking Options checking the "Display Spectrometer Pre-Scan for Confirmation: and then scrolling over, closer to the 'desired' value for K Ka and then proceeded with the peaking, and it did a better job of finding the peak. I will try your other suggestions, though, and I will e-mail the MDB file to you - it is just a copied file that was originally entitled the pyroxene.mdb.
Thanks once again for all your kind help - I really appreciate it.
Best regards
Dan