This standard establishes minimum acceptance performance requirements for portable radiation protection instruments used for detection and measurement of ionizing radiation fields or levels of radioactive surface contamination that are near background. For purposes of this standard@ portable radiation protection instruments are those battery-powered instruments that are carried to a specific facility or location for use.Specifically@ this standard is intended to apply to those instruments utilized to make in-situ measurements for confirmation of residual radioactivity levels that are below criteria established to permit the unrestricted release of a surface area or component from further regulatory controls.This standard is intended to define performance requirements and acceptance testing that supplements those established in ANSI N42.17A-1989 [B7] and ANSI N42.17C-1989 [B8]@ and to define calibration requirements that supplement those established in ANSI N323A-1998 [B6].1 This standard is applicable to the measurement of gamma@ beta@ and alpha radiation emissions only. This standard addresses the instrument response requirements for the same range of surface activity covered by the above ANSI standards@ but extends the applicable range of dose-rate response below those standards. This is illustrated in Table 1. Throughout this standard@ three verbs have been used to indicate the degree of rigor intended for each specific test or performance criterion. The word ??shall?? is used to denote a requirement; the word ??should?? to denote a recommendation; and the word ??may?? to denote a permissible practice.