Marine Web Store Ireland - How to - Squelch on your VHF radio.

Squelch Adjusts Your VHF Radio's Sensitivity

Today's topic: marine VHF radios, many of which are available these days for around €100. Easy and simple to use, squelch is oftentimes a poorly understood function among first-time VHF radio users. Squelch's purpose is simple: you increase or decrease the squelch on your VHF radio according to how sensitive you want your radio'sreceiver to be. In short, squelch makes your radio more or less sensitive to what's going on in the airwaves in your area and in particuar is used to eliminate the 'mush' sound which is backround static (atmospheric) noise.

The intensity of this backround noise varies with time of day, season of the year and from year-to-year. Hense it is necessary to set the squech each time you turn on the radio.

You should always set the radio to its most sensitive by adjusting the squelch to the very first position after the backround noise has disappeared. The reason for this is that someone else may be sending a Mayday and if you have made your radio less sensitive by using the squelch button, you may not hear them. Your ability to hear someone else's Mayday might result in you saving a life.

In practical terms, this is how you should turn your VHF radio on:

  1/. Turn on the power

  2/. Set the squelch so that is is so sensitive that you can hear the backround static noise.

  3/. Adjust the volume up or down until the static noise is loud enough so that you would hear it shouls it have been a voice rather than just 'mush'.

  4/. Set te squelch to the very first position after te backround noise has disappeared.

You are now raedy to recieve transmissions from other boaters, from coastal radio stations and from vessels in distress, without the discomfort of having to listen to 'mush'.