RD1503 Dosimeter (Outdoor Version) High accuracy geiger counter, nuclear radiation detector

I can never understand why radiation detectors are not more popular. I find that having something that can measure an invisible killer is a great thing. I did lot of research before buying this. This seemed the best one for the price. The next step up would be one with a pancake device. Anyway back to this product. I keep mine in a ziplock bag to protect it from dust. It quite happily tick as long measuring everything. I enjoy seeing the background levels of radiation instantly before my eyes. Some parts of it are difficult to use ie. how to set up the background radiation etc. However once this is done you can just turn the thing on and it will give you a warning. I bought mine in bright orange so that I don't mislay it.

Immediately after opening the package and during putting in the batteries I saw the problems with the 'outdoor' part of this product. The battery compartment is not sealed, at all, no gasket, no o-ring and you can see the PCB from the battery compartment. The battery-cover is a very basic push-in type that doesnt hinge or properly clip into place let alone is a secure screw-down type. Could easily drop or even lose the battery compartment cover if changing batteries outside. The batteries themselves also want to jump out of the connectors which might be a good anti-vibration feature except for the loose battery cover. The frist time I turned over the product to turn it on a battery had jumped out of the connector and pushed the battery cover out a ways. There is a gap in the top of the device for some component and being poorly aligned there is a 2mm gap into the case - again I can see bare PCB and into the void of the case from the hole, zero protection from water in any way whatsoever. There is no strain-relief for the LCD screen, gently pressing on the case near the screen, i.e. a firm grip, led to 'white-out' of corners of the LCD, it would not take much to damage the screen. I also see no gasket or seal for the screen, somewhere where water could pool and ingress. If you are going to use this outside, put it inside a ziplock bag - the bag shouldn't interfere with readings much as there is no alpha-detection. Didn't seem to affect the background-level when i did it. However, the device seems to work as intented, the background level was nominal and placing next to an old smoke-detector showed a small increase in levels. The software is okay. The menus are usable and readable. The alarm-level is adjustable. The backlight is useful and the amount of time it stays on is adjustable. Its easy to use and works automatically after turning on. Only downside is that the smoothed and filtered values take some time to become accurate (which is understandable in background-level areas as there are few 'hits' to calculate a rate from). It does however show you the warm-up progress to display when you have an accurate reading which is nice. Being able to alter the smoothing in software might also be useful ( trade noise for faster results / faster scanning ). Overall the device is okay although it feels 'cheap' as it seems to work as intended. I've only spent a short time with it so long-term reliability is unknown. But, if you are expecting a weather-proof 'outdoor' device, it certainly isnt it that. 3 stars becasue it works and is easy to use - but a misleading name and images: Don't get this thing wet at all, or keep it in the damp, or drop it, or hold it too tight, or lose the battery cover becasue a battery jumped out and pushed the easily removed battery-cover off.

Absolutely brilliant, good quality , accurate , nice features, easy to use , really pleased thku and well worth the money 💰

Amazing piece of kit. If you are a prepper, this is a good start. It gives live figures of radiation, it's small enough for a pocket and runs on 2 AA batteries. I recommend printing out a radiation scale and stick it to the back of the unit so you have a quick reference. Recommended.