Abstract

A portable electronic timepiece and radiation monitor assembly formed by a timekeeping section so linked to a radiation monitoring section that the user is provided not only with a time display but also with a reading of the existing level of penetrating radiation to which he is exposed. The timekeeping section includes a stable, high-frequency time base from which is derived low-frequency timing pulses that serve to actuate an analog or digital time display. The radiation monitoring section includes electronic means such as a microprocessor coupled to a radiation detector yielding signal currents or pulses at a rate depending on the existing intensity of radiation. These electronic means are responsive to clock pulses from the timekeeping section to determine the number of radiation pulses yielded within a fixed time interval to provide a radiation intensity value whose magnitude is indicated on a radiation intensity display. In one preferred embodiment of the assembly realized in a wrist watch format, these radiation intensity values are stored in a special memory of the microprocessor and accumulated therein to provide on a radiation digital time display a reading in terms of RAD's or other radiation measurement units giving the cumulative dosage to which the wearer has been subjected.