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Linuxslate.com Review:

Chinese (Unbranded) Pocket Geiger Counter/Dosimeter

Introduction/Background

Even just a few decades ago, a digital display would have been found only on a Geiger Counter that was very expensive Laboratory Equipment, or perhaps Military-grade Equipment that would have been used by high-level law enforcement/investigative organizations.


The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station spurred both Belarus and Ukraine to develop devices like the EcoTest MKS-05 (Reviewed Here), and the Polimaster 1208M Gamma Detector Watch.  The Fukushima disaster in 2011 spurred development of a number of small, inexpensive devices with semiconductor Γ (Gamma) detectors. (Gamma-only devices are not reviewed on Linuxslate.com)

I’m not sure if it is the combination of the 2 events, the geographical location of the events relative to China, rumors of leaks at facilities inside China itself, or simply the recognition of a small but growing market, but the Chinese manufacturing capability finally turned its eye toward consumer radiation detectors.

The first generation of these products did not, in my opinion, offer compelling advantages over the products available from former Soviet countries. These devices were based on what people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia actually needed to be built.  The Chinese products were based on what could be built.  This often meant color screens, and features like plotting and bluetooth, but practical considerations like build quality and battery life were not at a level that I would want to rely on in an actual civil defense emergency.

In just the last few months I started seeing what I am going to term the “Second Generation” of Chinese designed and built personal Geiger Counters and Dosimeters.  These devices are built into more practical and better-designed chassis, as opposed to what basically looked like a hobby project case.  The software continues to mature, too. Early products looked like a highschool Arduino programming project.(1)  The second generation units retain the benefits of the first generation, but build quality and programming have matured.  Plotting is available even on the most basic devices, and many will communicate over bluetooth with an App running on a mobile phone.

Unbranded Pocket Geiger Counter/Dosimeter

And so we arrive at the device that is the subject of this review.

Unbranded Chinese Geiger Counter with

Color LCD Screen

As with many Chinese-made products, I cannot find any branding or a name for this device.  Other than the symbols on the 4 buttons, there is no writing at all on the front of the unit.  The rear of the unit simply says “Geiger counter” [Capitalization Intentionally copied].  It also says “Charging: Type-c” [Again, capitalization copied, and not the way I would write it],  It also says “Voltage: 5V DC”, and “Battery:400mah”, but has no model number or branding.

It also has the standard symbols for CE (European standard), RoHS (made with Lead-free solder), FCC (US Federal Communication Commission) and PSE (Mandatory symbol for electronic products sold in Japan).  In the case of the FCC symbol, I have to admit that I have not looked for this device on the FCC’s website – mostly because there is no brand or model to search for, but also because I don’t believe this device has actually undergone FCC testing. That said, however, I also have no reason to believe that it would ever present a problem, or not meet any of the indicated standards.

The unit is built into an attractive metal case. When held in landscape mode, the left side has a molded radiation symbol, and the included (and installed) lanyard. The other end has the USB-C charging connector.  Note that the lanyard is too small to fit over my American-sized wrists, and has become totally frayed after it attached itself to a velcro pocket flap.

The front of the unit contains the small TFT LCD display, 4 buttons, and 2 small slots.  The slots seem to be for the purpose of letting the sound from the beeper out, and not to make the unit sensitive to alpha or ß (beta) particles.

The pretty LCD display becomes almost totally invisible in direct sunlight, but is adequately visible with a little shade or the cloud cover of a nuclear winter.

There is also a dual color LED.  Under normal operation, the LED blinks green at a one-second rate with approximately a 50/50 duty cycle.  It turns red for an alarm condition, but still continues to blink at a one second rate. I think it would make more sense to show particle counts -- at least in the “normal” mode.  In any environment, it would still blink occasionally, showing activity.  In either case, it would save batteries if it had a shorter -ON- time.

A long press of the Play/Power button turns the unit on.  Branding remains absent from even the startup screen, which simply displays “HELLO”.

The small LCD screen has 3 pages or displays.  In the default or “Home” screen, it displays acute dose in µSv/h (Microsieverts per hour). Along the top are icons for sound, vibration, and pause, followed by the uptime, and a battery level indicator.  There are also 3 small marks to the right of the display, indicating which page is being displayed.  In this case, the first, or top mark is elongated, and yellow – indicating we are on the first of 3 pages.

Pressing the “^” button selects the pages, so a single press will take us to the second screen, which shows the average dose rate since the unit was turned on, the maximum dose rate, and the total accumulated dose.  Note that in this mode, the Green, Yellow, or Red colors only indicate the different measurements.  They do not indicate good, bad, safe, unsafe etc.  Perhaps the coder was a Rastafarian, or simply pining for Jamaica.

From what I will call the “Rasta” screen, Pressing the “^” button again takes us to the plot screen.  This is an oscilloscope-like plot that shows the last 2 minutes.  I should note that it does not scroll – it works like an oscilloscope with a 2 minute timebase.  This timebase cannot be changed.  The vertical axis does not auto scale, nor can it be changed. The plot is also yellow, no matter the level. If the page is left, the plot is restarted from the left, without retaining previous data.  It does however, continue if the unit is left in this mode, and then put to sleep – More on sleep mode later.

Pressing the button with 3 lines (Menu) shows, and allows the setting of, the Dose Rate and Accumulated Dose alarm levels, however, only preset levels are available.  For Dose Rate, only 0.60, 2.50, 4.00, 6.00, 8.00 µSv/h are available.  I understand the default level of 0.60 µSv/h as an internationally recognized constant exposure limit, but I don’t get the big jump to 2.50µSv/h as the next option. I guess they didn’t see a need for a setting between “Not Great” and “Terrible”.(2)

Alarm Sound, Vibrate, both, or neither is selected with the key with the speaker icon, and the mode is indicated with red slashes through the respective (off) icons on the main and “rasta” screens.  Long pressing this button puts the unit in sleep mode.

What they call sleep mode simply turns off the LCD display. The LED continues to flash as previously mentioned, and if the unit is left on the plot screen, the plot will continue to sweep.  While overall it is not a very effective sleep mode, the plot function continuing to work is interesting.  If the unit alarms, it may give a clue as to the source.  Was it a source you are getting closer to, or is moving toward you?  Was it a cosmic event?  Note, however, that there is only 2 minutes of data, and if the unit was not in this mode, or the mode is switched, the plot will not be available.

The disadvantage is that everything except the display continues to work in “sleep” mode – there is still a significant drain on the battery.  The unit will only work for about 2 days in this mode.  Compare this to the Rodnik 3 or the EcoTest MKS-05, which can remain in sleep mode for months.

That said, this unit will work as a true Dosimeter, at least on a day-to-day basis.  The Rodnik 3 will not record accumulated dose at all.

In my “Have I Found anything Radioactive” post for the Rodnik 3, I mentioned that the beeper volume was not loud enough to alert me to a radioactive environment.  The beep from this unit is slightly louder, but depending on the user, how it is carried, and the ambient noise level, this device may suffer the same inadequacy.


Does it actually detect any radiation?

As seen in the unboxing video above, the unit reacts fairly quickly to a strong source of natural radiation.  The unit seems to have a good compromise between averaging (to provide a consistent and meaningful display of the detected level) and speed of detection. It's sensitive enough to show an increase from just setting it on a granite table for a few minutes.  Please monitor the review forum for this unit (Link Coming Soon) to see if I actually find anything radioactive.

Geiger Counters detect ionizing radiation and should be immune to reasonable sources of RF radiation.  To test this, I held the unit directly to the antenna of a handheld ham radio set to high power. 5 watts of RF did not have any effect.

Conclusion 

This unbranded Chinese Geiger Counter is visually appealing, very portable, and a compelling purchase, but due to the need for almost daily charging, and certain software “quirks”, it’s not the optimum device to have in your emergency “go box”.

My “EDC”(3) radiation meter will still be the Rodnik 3, and in an actual emergency, I’d really want my EcoTest MKS-05 with me.

3 portable radiation meters

The Chinese Geiger Counter Reviewed here (Bottom) along with the

Soeks 112 (Top - Review Here) and the Rodnik 3 (Center - Reviewed Here.)

The indicated dose rate varies because they were just turned on

for this photo, and are not displaying accurate readings.

Notes:

  1.  I highly recommend a basic Geiger Counter kit as a beginning project for young people wanting to learn Electronics/Physics/Soldering/Programming.
  2. This is a reference to a line from the movie Chernobyl allegedly attributed to Anatoly Dyatlov, the control room supervisor at the time of the accident.  The expression “Not great, not terrible” probably predates the use in the movie, but has become somewhat of an internet meme or euphemism for something very bad, or just an extreme understatement.
  3. Every Day Carry

Links to other related Reviews, Articles, and unboxing videos:

Unboxing Video of the device reviewed here

Overall Buyers Guide (Covers more than just the Soviet/Eastern ones)

Discussion Polimaster 1208M Gamma Detector Watch (Russia - Legacy)

Review DRSB-88 (Russia - Legacy)

Review Ecotest МКS-05 "Terra-P" (Ukraine)

Review Rodnik 3 (Russia - Current)    -     Unboxing Video Rodnik 3

Review Soeks 112 (Russia/USA - Current)  -  Unboxing Video Soeks 112

Review STREAM-2 (Belarus - Legacy)

Mini Review:  PALESSE 26K-86 Geiger Counter (Russia - Legacy)

Disclaimer:

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS".  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INJURY, OR ILLNESS ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE, INJURY, OR ILLNESS.

IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT YOU THINK IS RADIOACTIVE, OR OTHERWISE HAZARDOUS, OR IF YOU SUSPECT OTHERS OF HAVING SUCH, CONTACT YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY SERVICES.  THIS GUIDE IS A TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF CONSUMER ELECTRONIC DEVICES ONLY. IT DOES NOT, NOR DOES IT PURPORT TO, GIVE MEDICAL OR ANY FORM OF HEALTH ADVICE.  IF YOU SUSPECT THAT YOU HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO A HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCE, OR ARE HAVING HEALTH PROBLEMS, CONTACT A PHYSICIAN OR YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY SERVICES.

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