  As part of an effort to associate the unidentified EGRET gamma-ray sources
with pulsars, error boxes for 19 sources were searched using Arecibo at
327-MHz. The sources were chosen to be out-of-plane and possibly associated
with the Gould belt, a nearby starburst region with an enhanced production rate
of core-collapse supernovae. The search revealed one new 597-ms pulsar,
J2243+1518, within the error box of the EGRET source 3EG J2243+1509. The
spin-down energy loss rate of the new pulsar is not nearly sufficient to power
the gamma-ray source and so the pulsar is very unlikely to be associated.
Simulations we have carried out show that any pulsars at Gould belt distances
should have been detected by the survey. This suggests that either the EGRET
sources associated with the Gould belt are not pulsars, or that the minimum of
the pulsar luminosity function is lower than the ~1.5 mJy kpc^2 inferred from
the population of normal pulsars.

Astrophysics