Electronics - The GQ GMC 320+ Geiger counter and linux support
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
- Showing you my new Geiger counter and software options for linux.
Useful web links below:
GQ software download page:
www.gqelectroni...
Giegerlogger python program download link:
sourceforge.ne...
Some more detailed info on Uranium Oxide use in ceramics.
www.orau.org/p...
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When I was a kid (about 70 years ago) I wanted a Geiger counter so I could go to Nevada and find a vein and become rich. Dad wouldn't buy me one so I never became rich. Now I have no desire to tram around the deserts of Nevada and get snake and scorpion bit. I guess things worked out for the best. Hope you find some uranium and get rich in my place.
It's funny you say that because my friends ask why I wanted a Geiger counter, and I tell them 'I want to go find uranium ore'. It used to be worth a lot of money.
hahaha i never thought about that, wouldnt the government just take it off you if you did find anything?
Most geiger counters seem to be calibrated for Cesium-137. Most natural sources are probably uranium, thorium and the dougter product of them. If unit is calibrated by counts with cesium (for energy), something like uranium gives a much larger "energy" reading due to lots more low energy pulses counted.Anything that shows energy related units is more than likely quite a bit off. Very few cheaper units are really energy calibrated. Energy calibration can be done to an extent using suitable metals (perhaps in layers) around the geiger tube to shield it more from low energy gamma rays.
With a bit more sensitive devices than geiger tube (or lots more time with gm tube), I can measure which part of the bed anyone sleeps due to all the potassium-40 residue from sweat. Radioactivity can be used for a lot fun projects like that :)
Oh, one fun thing to try is to bring one on an aeroplane. If you have an alarming unit (like I do), put the sound off or raise alarm threshold if needed. I have threshold often set for significantly over ambient (at ground level) and it will trigger alarm up there.
New project, Kevin. Interface a GPS unit to it so you can also log location as well as date/time.
Quick and dirty solution: install a GPS logger on your phone and correlate the two logs by timestamp
Thanks so much for this recommendation. We are living very near a nuclear power plant in upstate SC this will be very helpful for checking things out around here.
Many years ago some flea market vendor at the Atlanta Hamfest had the Civil defense models. (inop and a very old voltage standard) Nice little yellow color with all the stickers intact. Best gift I could find for my dad who retired from the NRC a few years back. He started with them back when Mr Carter was in office and is a vet of TMI. He keeps it like it was an expensive vase in the living room!
I have seen those units on You Tube.
As I recall, they were designed to report very high levels of radiation.
The units appear very well made.
Thanks for making me aware of Geigerlog!
Kevin, loved seeing you place the Geiger counter on top of the orange plate. Hope you never eat any food served on that plate! Also, you can use pip to install Python modules -- you aren't limited to using the Synaptic package manager. I very much enjoyed watching this video. 73 de W3DJS
There's firmware updates available for these, the latest adds fast estimate reading which will allow it to count a lot faster than what it was capable of (the settings are dynamic, and 5-60 seconds), if you set it to 5 seconds it will count up and stabilize really fast, with my united nuclear test card it would take a few minutes to count up and stabilize (which is around 500 CPM), and now with it set to 5 seconds it takes a few seconds to reach that 500 CPM and stabilize. The dynamic setting is supposed to be anything from 5-60 seconds but from what I've seen of mine its about as slow as it was before the update, but it probably depends on the source on how hot it is (something hotter than a test card).
And the update also removed the 65k CPM limit so now it goes above that.
In not sure what for ware revision yours is running, but there are definitely improvements. The latest firmware is 4.74.
Kevin, according to the users manual, the mR/hr is milliREM (Roentgen Equivalent Man) /hr. That adds a 'quality factor' to the raw reading to account for biological damage.
Per earlier comment Kevin could you rig a GPS logger to run at the same time and quite literally create a heat map!
That's a neat idea. I don't have a stand-alone GPS I could tap for data, but I might have another way. I use google maps on the phone for travel. I'll have to look deeper into that app and see if it has a trip log that can time-stamp with UTC, then I could line up the data.
@@loughkb There's lots of mobile apps. I use Geo Tracker, which lets you export a track in kmz, which is basically a zipped xml file. Got a series of timestamps and GPS coordinates.
That looks like a fun thing to experiment with.
Hi Kevin,
Just remember, radiation exposure IS cumulative!
So having those plates nearby, will give long term exposure! Really, you should warn that shop owner as everytime they walk by, zytzzz, they get some more!
Also, those old fashioned green glass power line insulators... met a guy who owned & ran a trailer park back about 20 years ago. He had his whole front yard filled with those things. Quite lovely really. Until one of his neighbors came by w/a counter, and sure enough, the place was lit up like a xmas tree!. The owner died of cancer a few years later. (Too much of a good thing!)
Some people say also, really old green glass coke bottles.
Oh, and check EVERYTHING that is metal made in china! It's been known for awhile that china used recycled metals in pots & pans, etc. and tested positive for radiation as they recycled metal from various nuclear projects!
Speaking of x-rays, find yourself an old tube TV & set your meter near the back, bet it lights up too. X-rays from the HV power for the crt anode! I remember they had stickers warning of this too.
If you get an xray/cat scan, take this in with you.
And yes, all of high plateau of NE AZ, UT & NM; Grand Canyon, & Navajo/Hopi reservations have lots of uranium. That's why they have such water well problems, they're radioactively hot!
Oh yeah, this will be good for detecting UFO's (along with your radio & ignition quitting) before they land, haha...
Have fun with your new toy.
And thanks for letting us know about this model & how affordable it is, nice.
73 - John
You may have missed it in the video, but I did mention that 2 feet away from the plate I was reading background levels again.
Hi Kevin, I have a fairly good counter. I used it for my former company to verify a claim from a recycler on the East coast after the rejected a load of water jet cutting media. Prior to allowing the truck load of media into their facility, they walked around the truck rejected the load. This is after crossing from Arizona to their facility. We were able to verify new unused media from Utah and it was indeed radioactive. Now my unit has a pancake head and I have used it several times to thrill the kids after having my heart tested where they inject technetium-99m with a short half life (60 hours) for nuclear imaging. Right after returning home from the test, I turned on the Geiger counter and it pegged the meter on the highest setting and over the next few days the readings decreased. Technetium-99m can be readily detected in the body by medical equipment because it emits 140.5 keV gamma rays (these are about the same wavelength as emitted by conventional X-ray diagnostic equipment), and its half-life for gamma emission is six hours (meaning 94% of it decays to 99Tc in 24 hours). The radiologist asked if I was traveling by plane in the next few days and recounted a story about one of the patients setting off the detector worn by the Border Patrol at the check station between California and Arizona several hours after he had a similar test. He offered a declaration to present if I had to cross the border or fly.
All that Gamma! Did you secretly hope to turn green and get really strong? ;-)
@@loughkb - I felt energized. It's nice to know the old ticker is working good. Did the sales person at the shop with the Festia wear freak out? Like your videos, keep them coming!
@@kd7fht She was worried, so I took some time to explain how it was ok. Showed her the falloff to background was short. She really just found it all interesting by the end and was talking about getting a counter out of interest.
Thanks for doing my consumer research for me. :-) I've casually looked on several occasions but never saw these features and certainly not at this value. I even thought of buying the tubes and making a simple microcontroller version myself. I'm getting a GMC300Eplus to mount in my shack to be powered from the solar powered battery. Hopefully the Geiger clicking sound can be disabled but an alarm can be set to make a racket if there's a worrisome amount of radiation for any reason.
I've had mine sitting up on my top desk shelf clicking away for days. It's not too loud, and it's kind of like an old mechanical alarm clock on your bedside table. You don't really notice it after a while.
I actually find it's randomness kind of soothing when I nap in the afternoon.
@@loughkb side benefit: if you suddenly hear static, you know to duck and cover!
Amazing video and amazing device. I wish I had spare cash for one of those. I remember playing with an old Geiger counter in school. Technology certainly has moved on. I'm glad they also had the decency to support Linux and looks very well done. I'd be interested to hear what the store owner said about their radioactive plates :-)
To run a terminal in a specific directory, you can also make a right-click in the folder and chose « open a terminal here » ;)
A software package with real documentation?!? That can’t be right!!! 🤓
I always wanted a Geiger counter too
I inherited a lemon/orange juicer made of "vaseline" glass. It contains Uranium and is fluorescent. If you should ever have medical test where they inject you with technetium that meter will probably overflow. I had a small analog geiger counter and the needle pinned for days after that test.
Some vacuum tube rectifiers can be made into crude x-ray tubes. Have you considered trying that? Safety third!😊
Bro! you are the man. Thanks for the Linux tutorial!
Kevin, If you ever make it to Nevada it would be neat to see what readings you could detect, they use to do alot of underground nuclear test north east of vegas. And back in the late 80's there were concerns that some test leaked into the atmosphere.
Very interesting video kevin. One can also acquire ww2 government analog meters at a hamfest that have radium dials/readouts.
Excellent overview 👍
For anyone who doesn't want to install all the python deps (or whose distro doesn't have packages and you don't want pip/wheel messing about with your installed packages, nor do you want it messing about with your ~), a quick hack is just to grab source tarballs e.g. pypi.org/project/sounddevice/#files pypi.org/project/SoundFile/#files pypi.org/project/paho-mqtt/#files , untar them in the geigerlog directory, run something like "" (cd sounddevice-0.4.1 ; python setup.py config ; python setup.py build) ; (cd paho-mqtt-1.5.1 ; python setup.py build) "" and then launch geigerlog with something like "" PYTHONPATH="`pwd`/sounddevice-0.4.1/build/lib:`pwd`/SoundFile-0.10.3.post1:`pwd`/paho-mqtt-1.5.1/build/lib" python3 geigerlog ""
[Python devotees will immediately call this out as the wrong approach (you *should* create a specific virtual environment, but that turns out to be unnecessary for many simple packages at least right now), and they're correct -- but this saves me disk space, because I have dozens and dozens of python apps which use all sorts of quirky, incompatible dependencies, and I don't want to have to create dozens of virtual envs if I don't have to, lol. Yep, no guarantees that this approach won't break in the future, though!]
FYI, I have had luck getting some realtime data from CLI with github.com/chaim-zax/gq-gmc-control but it can't pull historic data for newer firmwares.
I just got the same counter and luckily I just happened to have a radioactive Pentax camera lens to test it on. It works - 230 CPM on that. Here in N. California (way up North almost to Oregon) were seeing around 12-17 CPM ambient. Im going to be taking it to the coast this Summer and am REALLY curious how the coastline reads after Fukashima. The fiesta-ware scares thee hell out of me.
I got two different radiation detecting products, a little plug that goes in the headphone jack of your phone, and a piece of software that can make your phone or tablet's camera sensor into a remarkably workable radiation detector, you just put a piece of electrical tape over the camera.
Both of them DO work, but they require a fairly significant source to show the detection well, and it's pretty "how ya' doin'", as Dave Jones would say. I have a card I got from United Nuclear with an encapsulated radiation source for calibrating geiger counters. Both the little detector plug and the software product worked to detect this card. The only other device I have is an ancient Civil Defense Survey Meter I got at a hamfest for $5. It won't detect a small source, and it's WAY past its calibration date, and to get it checked and calibrated would cost more than a detector like the one you got costs, so oh well.
Check out United Nuclear. They're fun to peruse. www.unitednuclear.com/
I saw the headphone plug device while researching before purchase. It uses a pin diode as the detector. Seemed like it was limited to a single specific type or radiation. Also, due to it's small size vs even the smaller tubes, it's much less sensitive.
Capture area is a big player in how sensitive Geiger Muller tubes are.
@@loughkb so that's what they used, a pin diode! Nifty.
Real interesting Kevin, I thought at first when it came up what's the point... But you changed my mind, this is really great and interesting. Thank you very much for an Interesting video.
I wanted one back in april 1986.
DUDE THIS IS AMAZING and EXACTLY what was looking for :D REALLY SHOULD PUT AWAY THAT ORANGE PLATE!
Be nice to log your GPS location also as you drive or walk around.
Ray Miller I was thinking the same thing Ray
Useful device Kevin for checking out 'hot' meters and dials on WW2 kit.
Beside uranium glaze (and glass) mainly emit alpha and beta (from decay products) radiation. There's almost no gamma at all. So even just a piece of regular glass in between significantly reduces counts and even a cabinet stuffed full of it has very low radiation outside it. (GMC's dose is calibrated for Cs137 which is significant in typical radiation disasters and it therefore significantly overestimates dose from Fiestaware etc. - if you want anything accurate get a scintillation device like better geiger or radiacode)
Another case is all those chinese quack products with thorium (hey, many of them are nice test sources for us that have extremely hard time getting real test sources!). While they do emit lots of alpha and beta there's also a noticeable amount of gamma. Probably because the stuff they're using isn't highly refined (often just crushed monazite?) so contains lots of very old daughter products as well as the thorium itself. Trying to block an old lamp mantles that has (purified) thorium dioxide seems a lot easier and most of it is blocked rather easily as well.
Great video-One of your best! So very interesting. Heh take care catch you on the flip-flop. C&D
Sometimes a reboot is essential before a python program will run as intended, He most likely found a thing called Yellow-cake which is then turned into Uranium.
what is the difference between the GMC-300E-Plus and the 320+
Excellent review on the gq geiger. I own the gq 300s and was hoping to find a tutorial on the PC or linux interface. Kg7uqo
normally a cesium source is used C-137 in most cases.
What is the difference between the 320 and the 300?
nice vid, ive been thinking about getting one, but does the audio jack indeed make it possible to hear the tics in a pair of earphones?
Good video. Does this unit connect wireless to the computer or cable only?
USB only.
Great video Kevin.
I have this counter. I use CPM, but an unclear as to whaw it is counting other than hits to the tube. What particals or is it counting?
I collect vintage camera lenses which can be radioactive due to Thorium in the lens elements. I have been measuring their accumulated CPM readings with the same GMC-320+ as you have. These lenses are coming in at 460 CPM to about 4000 CPM. I can block these with about a inch of Plexiglass. Nothing else seems to work, but that is OK as Plexiglass is cheap. So, what does this tell me? It is a count of something from the Thoriated glass hitting the Geiger tube, but of what? The GMC-320 also measures uSv/h. I have read that this is the actual measurement that really counts. I guess I am asking this CPM=Danger or illness. Should I be looking at uSv/h = Danger or illness?
The manual says Radiation detection: β,γ, x
Sensitivity to Gamma Radiation: 0.1 ~ 1 MeV
This is a little confusing as it includes three types of radiation. So should we be worried about one, two or all three?
If I can block these, one or all with about a inch of Plexiglass, what does that say about what is being recorded?
I have Fiestaware and I get normal background radiation...?
This is a cool find!! Do you think a raspberry pi 3b has enough horsepower to run the python module?
You could probably run it on a pi zero. It's not doing that much work.
You should check out Safecast. They’re doing amazing radiation monitoring all over the world
65535 is the limit on 16 bits. 8 bits is 256.
Is the Fiestaware you tested authentic?
Thanks for the video.. always like the content. Best wishes - vu3oum
Can it read β - radiation from bones of living people?
Radiation is what it is, regardless of source. If someone were putting off radiation from their bones, they'd probably already be dead.
@@loughkb I mean, is it possible to measure b -radiation from outside bones of living human. Person probably was poisoned with Sr 90 isotopes. Very high level of Sr 90 in hair.
Hey Kevin how about doing a tear-down video. (Don't turn it on, take it apart!)
There's not a lot to see inside, but I might do that once of these days.
Dear Kevin, no one knows where this has been made even though its supposedly an American company. Do you know the place of manufacture?
What did Grandma think about her plates being radioactive?
If there is no GPS logging then how the hell do you pin point where you were at what point in time? If you are walking or driving get my point?
The data is time stamped. Use your phone or other GPS to track your travel and just correlate the two data sets.
Interesting video, but loading the computer program lost me. Still enjoyed it.
So that's why potato salad never goes bad if you keep it in Fiestaware!
I remember something I read once about sterilizing something with radiation. I think it would take a lot more than the relatively low level coming off the ceramics. That was funny though.
Fun project! I would like to use the api to connect to a web server (RPi, esp32?) as an interesting programming project. 73 - K6CCA
On their software page they have a PHP program specifically for talking to it via a web server or browser.
@@loughkb Thanks, looking at Amazon I saw several models to choose from. If you had an affiliate link I would use it.
Comrade Dyatlov wants to know your location.
HA!
Silly boy. He ALREADY knows the location and was just testing you!
....junk....keep it long enough and you'll understand...