We have used a commercial RF ion-source to extract a beam of metastable neon atoms. The source was easily incorporated into our existing system and was operative within a day of installation. The metastable velocity distribution, flux, flow, and effi
ciency were investigated for different RF powers and pressures, and an optimum was found at a flux density of $2times10^{12},$atoms/s/sr. To obtain an accurate measurement of the amount of metastable atoms leaving the source, we insert a Faraday cup in the beam line and quench some of them using a weak $633,$nm laser beam. In order to determine how much of the beam was quenched before reaching our detector, we devised a simple model for the quenching transition and investigated it for different laser powers. This detection method can be easily adapted to other noble gas atoms.
