These radioactive GRC-9 radios were released from Dutch Army war reserve warehouses and we up-graded by the Dutch military to meet the best standards available for these radios at that time. The fact that the paint used is radio active is also indicated on the front of the radio set. See the picture below.

On the front of the receiver you can see a red ID tag with the International Warning Radioactive Source sign on it. It also mentions that the radio set can be used according to the restrictions given in a special document. What this restrictions were… I have no idea. Were they intended for the safety of the personnel operating the set or does it just indicate that the set can be traced - and thus fired on - by the enemy using Geiger Counters?

A same ID-tag, but now in black, can be found on the front panel of the transmitter unit, next to the frequency chart. In fact most often the radioactive warnings tags are in black on both receiver and transmitter unit. The red tags are not seen that often. Most times these warning sign plates are made of aluminium but also plastic sticker versions have been noted (like in the above pictured set the red sticker on the receiver unit).

What does it all mean… well the paint used on these rigs incorporate radium elements that make the indications of the front 'glow in the dark'. It is not the radiation for this paint that is the most dangerous, in fact all these radio active painted GRC-9's are treated with a rather thick layer of lack that does attenuate the alpha rays radiation very well. No the danger is when the lack cover is removed or broken and particles of the radio active paint can be touched by your hand. The likelihood is very high that in this case these particles will also enter into your mouth or nose and that's were the danger is.

In practice only a hand full of these radio's were recovered from the surplus market by the Dutch authorities. It seem that they were more successful in preventing any more radio active sets to come to the market since from that time on only GRC-9 with normal white paint were available on the Dutch surplus market.

Of course the radio active issues became the 'talk of the town' for Dutch military surplus radio lovers and the radio active Angry Nine became some sort of pariah. Since it is not always easy the see the difference between radio active paint and old normal paint, especially if you have not the expertise to discriminate between them, and also given the fact that some GRC-9 with regular paint but with the radio active warning sign on it appeared on the Dutch market it became a habit to remove the Radioactive Warming Sign plate form the sets. With this sign on it the set would not sell. Without the sign it did sell great! So the conclusion is simple. Many removed the Radioactive Warning Sign plate from the set since it is only hold by two small screws. However, simple CSI techniques will unmask the crooks. Two little holes on the receiver front and on the transmitter front next tot the frequency chart.