Using portable handheld radiation detection instruments by front-line officers in all countries has challenges that impact detecting and combating the illicit trafficking of radioactive materials. The primary and secondary inspections at Border Crossing Points (BCP) or seaports where there is a high number of import and export commodities are made by front-line officers (FLOs) with non-technical backgrounds with expectations that high confidence and rapid alarm assessment must be done. Many alarms are simply the result of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) moving through commerce, and separating alarms possibly caused by nuclear and other radioactive materials from the alarm pool of mostly NORM can be quite difficult. Response and inspection time become a challenge that requires responsibility and coordination. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has supported all Member States (MS) to improve the ability of responsible employees to control persons and vehicles for radioactive materials that are out of regulatory control, to prevent illegal movement and trafficking of these goods through different research coordinated projects as CRP J02012 “Advancing Radiation Detection Equipment for Detecting Nuclear and Other Radioactive Material out of Regulatory Control”. In the frame of this project a survey was prepared with five sections and 28 questions in total and in this survey participated 42 different MS. This paper provides information about the personal information and experience of different FLOs, the equipment used during inspections, notifications of Personal Radiation Detectors (PRDs) and Radioisotope Identification Devices (RIDs), display and interfaces of RIDs, and features for radiation detection equipment in general. The purpose of this survey was to identify the problems related to the measurements and identification of different radionuclides using equipment like PRDs, RIDs, etc., especially for NORM alarms assessment which compose more than 99% of Alarms at BCP. The most preferred survey result on PRDs screen notification unit based on FLOs job function was in µSv/h.

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