I Bought a Gamma Scout Pt.2 - Teardown & Conclusion

Archived from radmon.org - originally posted 25/12/2018

Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to open up the Gamma Scout. I managed to carefully remove the sticker enough to reveal the screws so here are some pictures of the inside of the counter. The pictures aren't great as I'm not really setup with good lighting etc.

A quick update after living with my Gamma Scout for a few months.

Despite everything I have written (which my opinion remains true and I stand by) I have really grown to love this counter. It's very handy and just 'there' when I need/want a counter. It is the first counter I pick up now for whatever I want to check. Prior to having the Gamma Scout I would grab my NetIO GC 10 (the one I added to with GPS and SD card (and housed in a nice polycarbonite case)). If I was playing about with sources, and admit it, we all grab our counters and sources occasionally to have a play and see how many clicks they give ;) I would grab my breadboard with my Geiger circuits on and hook up a tube, mainly my LND712, and have a good probe about. But the Gamma Scout is just super handy for doing this kind of thing. I take it out with me occasionally especially to antique stores and warehouses to see if there is anything radioactive and I have found Uranium glass and once an old aircraft clock readout, I think altimeter if I remember correctly, but it had radium of the dial hands. Too expensive for me though at the time.

And so my final thought on the Gamma Scout is despite it's build quality, the cheap feeling plastics and the fact it not going to last forever, and I would really not want to drop it, it is damn handy. It is there and ready to go. No batteries to mess about with. no having to wait until it is switched on and getting up to count. It is just there, ready for me to pick it up and look at the screen. It still bugs me that it doesn't readout CPM and I forget what the buttons do all the time so have to refer to the manual a lot. Besides all that it does what it should. It reads radiation at a moments notice. Great for low level sources but I don't think would be good for 'the big one' as the LND712 can avalanche at lowish levels. (Avalance is the wrong term but I can't remember nor find what I mean. It's when the tube detects more than it is capable of and reads nothing). I wouldn't call it a survey meter, I would call it the first thing I picked up to see what was going on right before putting batteries in some of my other counters.

It has it's uses for sure, but I'm glad I didn't buy a new one. I'm relatively pleased with what I paid for mine, but if I paid full retail price I would have probably been disappointed. A good bit of kit for the hobbyist and prepper but I don't think would hold up to a real close radioactive incident. And by that I mean a country changing event.