Re: [Phys-L] geiger counter

[Tom Van Baak <tvb@LeapSecond.com>]

> I teach in high school and am wanting an "inexpensive" portable 
geiger counter

I have played with many student-friendly Geiger counter products and DIY 
kits. My favorites these day are the series made by GQ Electronics, on 
the web and on eBay. Design and quality is good, prices are modest, and 
there are several models to choose from with various features. I have no 
connection with them, but over the past decades as a science geek I 
shopped around for a lot of rad-related products and really like these.

The gamma and beta detectors are cheap; it seems adding alpha is quite a 
bit more. I have Fiestaware, a radium wristwatch, and some old smoke 
detectors and love to peg the meters at short range.

Most include LCD readout, buttons, menus, ticking audio, flashing LED, 
and such. They work out of the box. Some allow optional phone or 
computer GUI if you like to use canned external s/w, but it isn't 
required. Some have internal logging memory which is nice. That means 
you can take them cross-country on a plane flight and later look at the 
data and be amazed at the dosage you get up at 30k feet.

If you are a STEM or hacker type, they all lend themselves to external 
timing and counting via TTL/CMOS pulse, RS232, or USB. Thus none of 
their canned s/w is necessary if all you want is the raw data. IMHO 
being able to write your own few lines of code to count or timestamp 
events is ideal for student use. That is, it's more interesting to 
record the precise time of each event instead of just lumping counts in 
bins like CPM (counts per minute) or CPH.

/tvb
www.LeapSecond.com


On 3/7/2023 5:37 PM, Anthony Lapinski via Phys-l wrote:
> I teach in high school and am wanting an "inexpensive" portable geiger counter
> for some activities in our Science Club. To detect alpha, beta, and gamma
> radiation (and x-rays?). I want the device to have a peaker so kids can
> easily hear the ticks. Many are available online. Anyone have experience
> with these or use one in their teaching? Any good activities, ideas, or
> write-ups?