RADEX RD1503+ w/o dosimeter: High accuracy Geiger counter, radiation detector (English)

Works as advertised. I bought this as a replacement for an old Civil Defence geiger counter. I left that one in Japan in 2011 with family. Thankfully their area was unaffected by the radiation at Fukushima, but that real life disaster did open my eyes as to how my toy was also a valueble tool. I also know that if a radiological event happens nearby. Short of experiencing an explosion there is no way to know if I was in real danger until the officials say so. A few days after I received the Radex FD1503+, I had a chance to test it during a dental X-ray. I held it in line of the X-ray with my face in between. The assistant covered my chest with a lead shield and ducked outside the examining room. In an instant the Radex reading shot up. I was impressed that that short, and relatively safe level of exposure was clearly detectable. If you travel a lot as I do or live in an area where the potential for radiation exposure is elevated. The Radex is very affordable, very portable, and works. Not just a cool toy, but also an essential way to navigate away form a radioactive area (or have the piece of mind to know that its safe) without having to rely on notification from officials.

* After the Fukushima disaster, I learned that the only radiation monitoring numbers I could get (and they meant nothing to me) came from an EPA station over 100 miles away with months-long delayed analysis --and their air sampling wasn't working at the time. I bought an RD-1503 through Amazon.com and have logged an average of 5 cycled readings a day ever since.* I've had no problems with my 1503, but I've read that a lot of handling can loosen up a critical solder connection inside, so treat it nice. Don't let it get contaminated, wet, or even very humid.* The best way to use this instrument is to pretty much keep it at home, protected inside a small, thin, resealable plastic sandwich bag. Do your monitoring in the same way, at the same location, and at about the same time of day --so that you have a meaningful "base line" of readings for comparison. You want to methodically do 5 "background" readings and average the results, then subtract that average from 5 readings on anything special.* Don't be fooled by radon\daughters, which decay by half (always first subtracting background) in about 40 minutes. Radon is _bad_ stuff, I chart it, and I wonder about its comings and goings, but it's probably not coming from Japan. However, should your background readings take a big and sustained jump, or if you get a sample of something that keeps reading high the next day, you may have identified a problem.* Learn about your instrument's limitations. It's very hard to usefully read beta emitters in food, water or milk with any Geiger counter. That takes trained personnel, special procedures and expensive spectrometry equipment in a lab.Google "Radex-RD1503" + "SW Oregon" for the little bit I've managed to learn.Craig

I bought this device to use as the subject of a hiking project with my grandchildren, mapping with a GPS as I go and recording the local radioactivity as I go. (It should make a nice intellectual point to hiking.)I first tried the device at my home (unradioactive I hoped) and then some other places that I knew, from previous use of laboratory-grade counters, definitely had some local radioactivity in the sand and cliffs and it gave readings more or less as I expected from the previous use of much more expensive counters. As another test, it also picked up radioactive gas-mantles quite well indeed when I sat the device upon one (the luminescent gas-mantles as often used in camper lamps are often very solidly radioactive--- a ref on this is available if amazon requests) The strong signal was expected but it was reassuring to get it. The device is convenient to use and I found gave repeatable results although you have to leave it sit for a few minutes to get a reliable result. Note that if you use gas old-style mantles to test it yourself please make sure they are the old-fashioned thorium based gas mantles as the many modern gas mantles are no longer radioactive. In my experience the non-radioactive mantles advertise this clearly on their packet and the old radioactive mantles are discreetly silent about radioactivity on their packet. (Choose one from an old camping shop that doesnt mention radioactivity on its packet and then dont sleep near it!)The four stars come from its very low price for doing an adequate job.

I'm not sure where to begin with this review. My problem is not so much with the unit itself as it with the manual. If I was going to rate the manual on legibility and usefulness I would have to give it a D or maybe a D+. The manual needs to be completely re-written. The poor English, spelling, punctuation, and grammar need to be cleaned up by someone who speaks English as a first language. The organization and presentation of the material guarantees confusion and frustration to anyone new to Geiger counters. For example - this is one of the instructions for using this thing: "Remember that the ionizing radiation has a static random character therefore indications of the monitor in identical conditions will not remain strict." What the hell does that mean? Come on Radex - spend a little money and put out a manual that will be helpful to new users. Until the manual is made a lot more user friendly I don't think I could recommend this to a new user. I deducted two stars because of the lousy manual.