The instability of source and absorber temperatures and their influenc
e on the Mossbauer spectrum is briefly discussed. A simple source ther
mostat was designed for the purposes of precision Mossbauer spectrosco
py. The hyperfine alpha-Fe parameters were studied in detail as functi
ons of the temperature. As a result temperature coefficients for the c
entral shift and magnetic splitting of alpha-Fe were obtained at 298 K
.