All Forums  GQ Electronics Forums  2.GQ Geiger Muller Counter  DP-63-A: radium scales and other info

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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by jlp1528[/i] [br]I thought I would post my own findings on this portable Russian Geiger counter. First of all, not all DP-63-A units have radium scales, as the product went through several revisions much like the CDV-700s. Personally I bought three of them and only got lucky with one. Unfortunately, only the earlier models have the radium scales, and pictures alone usually won't indicate which model it is. Here is a video with more information:[url]https://youtu.be/f2lRiWsf4KE[/url] However, if you do get one with a radium scale, it will be very obvious, as a modern digital Geiger counter like a GMC-500+ or especially the 600+ will start going berserk when placed anywhere near the "display" of the DP-63-A. Be VERY careful when taking these things apart - wear gloves, be as gentle as possible, and have a ziplock bag or five ready to put the scale in as soon as it's liberated from the unit. The activity of this "sample" is at a level where you should consider a using a small lead container to store it. It's well over 1 mSv/hr and a significant portion of that is gamma. Another thing to keep in mind is those Sr-90 check sources, which are also considerably hot. That said, if you want to add some Sr-90 to your collection, a DP-63-A is probably your best bet. Since the source is inside the unit, it's much less likely to have been removed than the sources in other Russian or Polish Geiger counters. Chances are if the check source is a loose part it's been removed for "legal concerns" or other stupid technicalities, and I'm not sure how you would get the source out of the probe in the case of the DP-5V (if the authorities haven't already done so...) Finally, although there was a previous thread claiming that the scale is over 1 million CPM on a GMC-500+, I'm not sure how that happened. Neither my 500+ nor my 600+ can measure it at all unless I turn off dead time - there's some runaway math error because the sample is simply too hot, so they crash. With dead time off I get readings of up to 300,000 CPM with the 500+ and up to 500,000 CPM with the 600+. Of course, these are still very high readings - again, well over 1 mSv/hr - SO PLEASE, TAKE THIS THING SERIOUSLY!!! [/quote]    Insert an Image File Check here to include your profile signature.