Feeling stoopid

Is the squelch all the way to the right or left?

 

You need the CB version

 

And the rf gain all the way to the right?

 

Should sound like crap all static. Back off RF till the static quits. Should receive nearby radios clearly with volume up.

 

No, I leave the RF gain all the way up clockwise. The real purpose of the RF gain is if you are parked close to someone that's talking and they sound fuzzy, it's because they are overloading your radios receiver. In this case you turn the RF gain down counterclockwise, you will notice it reduces the RF signal and it clears up their voice so you can understand them better.
As some have posted that they are basically using the RF gain as the squelch. By doing this they are defeating the purpose of the squelch. As an example with my RF gain clear up and the skip starts rolling with an s-9 or higher signal, I just turn my squelch up high enough not to hear the noise and skip. But I can still talk to someone close by. Now as the day goes on and the skip dies down, and I see the noise level is an s-3, I know the skip is gone so I just turn my squelch down till I hear the threshold (noise) and then turn the squelch up till it quits. This is the optimum performance for the radio to hear weak signals. So if you turn your RF gain down you can't tell by the S/RF meter that the skip is gone, because the RF gain effects the true readings of the S/RF meter.