This work concentrates on the experimental determination of the properties of ionic molecular clusters that are produced in the bipolar ionic atmosphere of a radioactivity based Am-241 charger. The main scope of this study was to investigate the dependency of the ions' properties on carrier gas contaminants caused by the evaporation of trace gases from different kinds of frequently encountered tubing materials. A recently developed high resolution mobility spectrometer allows the precise determination of the ions' electrical mobility; an empirical mass-mobility relationship was used to approximate the corresponding ion masses. It was found that impurities in the carrier gas dramatically change the pattern of the ion mobility/size distribution, resulting in very different ion properties that strongly depend on the carrier gas composition. Since the ion properties control the charging process of aerosols, it was further investigated how the different ion properties affect the calculation of the charging probabilities of aerosols. The results show that despite large variations of the ions' properties, only a minor effect on the calculated charging probabilities can be found. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.