Using Your Radio; Making A Voice Mayday Call; Setting The Volume; Setting The Squelch Level - West Marine VHF490 Owner's Manual

Using Your Radio

• An arrow on the left side indicates the current selection.
• Press CHANNEL UP on the radio or the microphone to move up a line in the menu; if you are at the top line in the menu, the
cursor jumps to the bottom of the menu.
• Press ENT-1W/25W to choose the selected item.
• Press CHANNEL DOWN on the radio or the microphone to move down a line in the menu; if you are at the bottom line of the menu,
the cursor jumps to the top of the menu.
• Press CLR-SCAN to go back to the previous menu screen.
• From any menu screen, choose Exit or press and hold CALL-MENU to close the menu screen.

Making a Voice MAYDAY Call

(see inside front cover)

Setting the Volume

Turn the volume knob clockwise to increase the speaker volume; turn it counter-clockwise to decrease the volume.

Setting the Squelch Level

The squelch feature reduces the level of static on the speaker by filtering out the background channel noise. At the lowest squelch
level, the speaker plays all radio signals, including any noise on the channel. Setting the squelch level higher filters out channel
noise and lets only actual radio transmissions through.
While listening to a channel, adjust the SQUELCH knob until the noise is filtered out and you can only hear the transmission. If
you switch to a channel with a lot of noise or with a weak transmission, you may need to adjust the squelch level again.
NOTE: Setting the squelch level too high may prevent you from hearing weaker transmissions. If you are having difficulty
hearing a transmission, try setting the squelch level lower.

Changing the Channel

Press CHANNEL UP and CHANNEL DOWN briefly to scroll through the channels one channel at a time. Press and hold
CHANNEL UP or CHANNEL DOWN to quickly scroll through the channels.

Making a Transmission

To make a transmission, press and hold the microphone PUSH TO TALK button. Release the PUSH TO TALK button when you're
finished talking to let the other party respond.
• To prevent stuck microphone problems or situations where PUSH TO TALK is pushed accidentally, the radio limits your talk time
to 5 minutes in a single transmission. If you talk for over 5 minutes continuously, the display shows RELEASE MIC BUTTON.
• For the best sound quality, hold the microphone about two inches away from your mouth.
Strong signals
Weak signals
Noise
No Medium
Squelch Squelch
VHF490 RADIO
9
High
Squelch
1-800-BOATING