Welcome to the Gamma Scout Service Center. Do you have general questions (Q & A) about Gamma Scout, would you like to check the latest manuals or download the latest software updates for Windows (7, 8 / 8.1 or 10.0) and MAC OS X? GAMMA-SCOUT Radiation Detector. Model Available: GAMMASCOUT. Features: Designed to detect harmful ionizing radiation which include alpha, beta, gamma and x-radiation. It provides 24/7 radiation level measurement with one button refresh and it comes with an ultra long life 10-year V-MAX Battery. Download Gamma Scout Toolbox 4.3.1.0 from our website for free. The program's installer file is commonly found as GammaScoutToolBox.exe. Gamma Scout Toolbox can be installed on 32-bit versions of Windows XP/7/8/10. The most popular versions of the Gamma Scout Toolbox 4.3, 4.2 and 1.0.
Gamma Scout Tools is a software system to be used to manage the Gamma Scout geiger counters. The program is able to:
- read out data from the counter;
- display and plot them;
- save them to local files in the user desired format.
New features may be added in the future. GammaScoutTools has a GUI built on the Qt libraries and a self explanatory help on line system. It is based on the Gamma Scout Utilities developed by Johannes Bauer and inherites the data plotting capabilities from the Gammma Scout Decoder developed by Lionel Bergeret. To use the tool, add yourself to the dialout group.
I built the rpm packages for openSUSE 12.3, openSUSE 13.1, openSUSE 13.2, openSUSE Leap 42.1, openSUSE Leap 42.2,openSUSE Leap 42.3, openSUSE Leap 15.0, and openSUSE Leap 15.2, and made them available for download. Source rpms are available from the repository. Please read the installation instructions from the related page.
1 Hardware
That's the device this page is all about:
This is a picture of the 'Gamma Scout with Alert' Geiger Counter. It has a USB interface on the bottom which can be used to connect the device to a PC in order to query the logged radiation data. There are also other members of the Gamma Scout Family:
- Gamma Scout without Alert ('Gamma Scout Basic')
- Gamma Scout with Alert ('Gamma Scout Alert')
- Gamma Scout with Alert and Online Mode ('Gamma Scout Online')
The devices most likely differ only in their firmwares, the hardware seems quite identical. Some of the devices have a RS232 interface via a 9-pin SUB-D connector and others (most new ones) have USB. There also are at least two different protocol versions around (from hereon referred to a protocol v1 and protocol v2) which are both supported by the GammaScoutUtil. There seems to be a correlation between the firmware version, the number of digits in the display and the protocol version. As someone suggested on the Internet (I'm unsure how reliable that information is), all Gamma Scouts with firmware version <= 5.43 have a 3-digit display and use protocol version v1. All Gamma Scouts with firmware version >= 6.02 have a 4-digit display and use protocol version v2. You can find out the firmware version by pressing the 'Battery' button and then the 'Enter' button. For the 'Gamma Scout Online', the GammaScoutUtil only supports the features that the 'Gamma Scout Alert' also has (i.e. Online Mode is not supported at the moment). This is only because I have no access to a online device -- if anybody has such a device and wants to get it running, drop me a note with some details and I'll try to include support for it.
For the USB versions, the hardware which is used is a FTDI FT232RL is used which is nicely supported by Linux already:
It therefore appears as a serial interface (/dev/ttyUSBn). A query I did with the vendor (Dr. Mirow) in order to get access to the protocol details remained unanswered. Therefore I re-engineered the v2-protocol and wrote a device driver with which you can use the device. Luckily, the protocol was quite easy to understand. For the protocol v1 some info could be found on the net and I had the help of Jörg Wartenberg, who kindly provided the test data from his device (since I do not own a protocol v1 Gamma Scout)
2 Communication Protocol v1
2.1 Commands and Responses
Older models of the Gamma Scout family use the v1 protocol. This is, as the v2, based on ASCII communication, but a little bit more limited. Most notably, the PC cannot initiate the connection, but the 'PC mode' has to be activated first by pressing the according button of the Gamma Scout. This makes the Gamma Scout with a v1-protocol virtually useless for continuous data logging. Communication is performed with 2400 baud, 7E1, no echo. Note that every response (in contrast to the v2 protocol) is not only preceded by 'rn', but also by a space character (denoted explicitly as s for more clarity). Here's the command list:
| Command | Description | Response | Example |
| 'v' 76 | Get version of device | 'rnsVersion 5.43rn' | |
| 'd' + DDMMYY 64 [...] | Sets the current date | 'rnsDatum gestelltsrn' | Example to set date to 2011-10-02: |
| 'u' + HHMM 75 [...] | Sets the current time | 'rnsZeit gestelltsrn' | Example to set time to 12:34: |
| 'z' 7a | Clear the recorded logs | 'rnsProtokollspeicher wieder freisrn' | |
| 'i' 69 | Reset and self-test the device. | No response. | |
| 'b' 62 | Dump the recorded logs | Multiple lines of hex-dump (started by 'rnsGAMMA-SCOUT Protokollsrnrn') |
2.2 Log Interpretation
In contrast to the protocol version 2, special command codes are slightly different. The first three bytes of the log encode the serial number of the device in little endian using the 'decimal interpreted as hexadecimal' representation (i.e. for the above device, that serial would be 10203). At position 0x20 a uint16 value is stored in little endian byte order indicating the first invalid address in the log. The actual log then starts at 0x100. For the example above, the first invalid log address is 0x131 (the uint16 value at position 0x20), therefore the log is from 0x100 to 0x130 (inclusively). The log itself contains encoded command codes and impulse counts. The command codes always have 0xf in the first nibble of the first byte (i.e. every hex-sequence that starts with 0xf? is a command code, everything else is a impulse count):
| Command | Description | Example |
| fe [mm] [hh] [DD] [MM] [YY] | New date and time has been set. Note that all values are decimal values in hexadecimal representation, or in other words: To get the actual values of each byte, you have to calculate: byte = 10 * ((byte & 0xf0) >> 4) + (byte & 0x0f) | fe ef 59 23 31 12 11Encodes that the date will be from this point in the log 2011-12-31 23:59 |
| ff [GG GG] [CC CC] | Encodes that there is a gap in the logs. GG GG is the gap time in minutes, given in little endian byte order. The impulse count CC CC encodes the amount of impulses counted in that given period of time. The impulses are encoded in floating point represantation, for a detailled description see the section 'Floating Point Representation' | ff 0f 00 00 f8Encodes that a gap of 15 minutes occurred, i.e. 0x000f. In this interval, 248 impulses were counted. |
| f4 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 1 minute from now on. | |
| f3 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 10 minutes from now on. | |
| f2 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 1 hour from now on. | |
| f1 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 1 day from now on. | |
| f0 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 7 days from now on. | |
| [CC CC] | Encodes an impulse count. Impulse counts are encoded in floating point represenation with a 6 bit exponent and 10 bit mantissa. The values are decoded according to the description in the 'Floating Point Representation' section. | See 'Floating Point Representation' section. |
3 Communication Protocol v2
3.1 Commands and Responses
The communication protocol v2 the Gamma Scout uses is trivially easy to understand and implement. Communication is done with 9600 baud, 7E1, no echo. The protocol is ASCII-based, you can use for example picocom to play around with it a little. Here is a list of commands that you can issue and the according responses:
| Command | Modes / Description | Response | Example |
| 'v' 76 | PC, Acquisition: Get version and mode information of device |
| Acquisition mode: PC connected mode: |
| 'P' 50 | Acquisition: Switch to PC mode | 'rnPC-Mode gestartetrn' | |
| 'X' 58 | PC: Switch to Acquisition mode | 'rnPC-Mode beendetrn' | |
| 't' + YYMMDDHHMMSS 74 [...] | PC: Set date and time of the device to desired value. Note that this command has to be sent extremely slowly, i.e. about 500ms between each character, or the device will lose single characters. Note also that the date and time is not checked for plausibility whatsoever, so it is perfectly possible to set the date to ff-55-99 90:60:90. | 'rnDatum und Zeit gestelltrn' | Example to set time to 2011-10-02 20:19:00: |
| 'c' 63 | PC: Get some configuration data from the device | Multiple lines of hex-dump | Since I have no clue what these values encode, I blacked them partially out. They're just some hexdump with four lines of data, then all zeroes. The first line of data looks somewhat special: |
| 'b' 62 | PC: Dump the recorded logs | Multiple lines of hex-dump | |
| 'z' 7a | PC: Clear the recorded logs | 'rnProtokollspeicher wieder freirn' | |
| 'i' 69 | PC: Reset and self-test the device. Completely erases the log and date/time settings. Performs a quite lengthy self-test after issued where it counts from 0x0 to 0xffff in steps of 0x400 about four times. | No response. |
3.2 Log Interpretation
The log that is issued upon sending the 'b' command is also quite easy to understand. First it is necessary to know that the log does not get reset when it is cleared, only the pointer gets reset to the beginning. Therefore it is necessary to query how much data is valid by using the 'v' command before issuing 'b'. Each line contains 33 bytes of data (i.e. 66 characters + 'rn', so 68 bytes per line). The first 32 bytes in each line are actual protocol data. The last byte is the checksum, which can be calculated by taking the sum of the preceding 32 bytes modulo 256. Then while traversing the log, if the first byte is 0xf5, it indicates a special command and has variable length. If it does not start with 0xf5, it is a impulse count, coded in big endian format. Here's the list of special commands:
| Command | Description | Example |
| f5 ef [mm] [hh] [DD] [MM] [YY] | New date and time has been set. Note that all values are decimal values in hexadecimal representation, or in other words: To get the actual values of each byte, you have to calculate: byte = 10 * ((byte & 0xf0) >> 4) + (byte & 0x0f) | f5 ef 59 23 31 12 11Encodes that the date will be from this point in the log 2011-12-31 23:59 |
| f5 ee [GG GG] [CC CC] | Encodes that there is a gap in the logs. This occurs whenever the interval was changed. For example, when having the device in 7-day acquisition mode and changing to 5-minute acquisition mode after 3 days, the amount of time (3 days) will be recorded and the amount of counts recorded so far will also be recorded. The gap is coded in little endian (!) in 10-second intervals, but the counts are encoded in big endian floating point representation (detailled description in section 'Floating Point Representation'). | f5 ee 68 00 01 9aEncodes that a gap of 17:20 (minutes:seconds) occurred, i.e. 0x0068 * 10 seconds (1040 seconds). In this interval, 410 impulses were counted (0x019a). |
| f5 0c | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 10 seconds from now on. | |
| f5 0b | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 30 seconds from now on. | |
| f5 0a | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 1 minute from now on. | |
| f5 09 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 2 minutes from now on. | |
| f5 08 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 5 minutes from now on. | |
| f5 07 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 10 minutes from now on. | |
| f5 06 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 30 minutes from now on. | |
| f5 05 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 1 hour from now on. | |
| f5 04 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 2 hours from now on. | |
| f5 03 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 12 hours from now on. | |
| f5 02 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 1 day from now on. | |
| f5 01 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 3 days from now on. | |
| f5 00 | Encodes that the acquisition interval will be 7 days from now on. | |
| f5 f3 | Unknown. Occurs in the log after the device has been reset. | |
| f5 f4 | Unknown. Occurs in the log after the device has been reset. | |
| [CC CC] | Encodes an impulse count. Impulse counts are encoded in floating point represenation with a 6 bit exponent and 10 bit mantissa. The values are decoded according to the description in the 'Floating Point Representation' section. | See 'Floating Point Representation' section. |
4 Floating Point Representation
Impulse counts are encoded in floating point represenation with a 6 bit exponent and 10 bit mantissa. First, the value is converted using big endian decoding (most significant byte first):
Then the exponent and mantissa can be extracted (format is eeeeeemm mmmmmmmm): The two least significant bits of the exponent are then mangled together: If the resulting exponent is zero, the impulse count is the mantissa value. Otherwise, the impulse count is retrieved by adding 210Gamma Scout Driver Download Software
to the mantissa and then multiplying by 2exponent - 1
. In other words:4.1 Examples
For the last example (ab cd), converting to big endian yields 0xabcd. The exponent and mantissa therefore are 42 and 973. After mangling the two least significant bits of the exponent together, the exponent is 21. Therefore, the result is: (973 + 1024) * 220 = 1997 * 220 = 2094006272.
Thanks to Martin Bönsch, who noticed an error in the above calculation and corrected it.
5 Linux Software: GammaScoutUtil
5.1 Prerequisites
Here's what's required to get GammaScoutUtil running:
- Python 3.0 or greater
- pyserial
For Ubuntu:
5.2 Getting Started
After plugging in the Gamma Scout into your USB port, check with dmesg which device it is recognized as. Usually this will be /dev/ttyUSB0. Then, you can call gammascoututil to check if it finds your Gamma Scout. Putting the Gamma Scout into PC mode beforehand is actually not necessary, the software takes care of that.
Then, let's first read out the internal log into a text file:
Gamma Scout Driver Download Pc
What you might want to do if your have the tool running via a cronjob (i.e. have the setting log in a small interval and clear the data nightly) is log into a database. For this you can directly query into a sqlite database. Also note that you can supply multiple commands on one command line (for example, readout and clear the database afterwards):
5.3 Downloads
Gamma Scout Driver Download Windows 7
| Filename | Last Changed | Description |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub | This is the official GitHub repository and the place where all new development will be posted. | |
| GammaScoutUtil-0.04.tar.gz | 2012-01-06 |
|
| GammaScoutUtil-0.03.tar.gz | 2011-10-26 |
|
| GammaScoutUtil-0.02.tar.gz | 2011-10-02 |
|