Noise Reduction

By: Roger Creasy

We are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information every day. Much of that information is not necessary for our purposes. Some examples are: spam email, bacn email (those lists for which we signed up, because it seemed interesting at the time. But, it is just info we don't really need or use), blogs that we read out of habit, but don't really need (hopefully, THIS blog does not fall in that category), the list is endless.

In radio and telecommunications there are circuits designed to reduce weak or unwanted signals. These circuits are called squelch circuits. Often the circuit has a dial, which allows the operator to control the intensity of the squelch applied. If a strong but undesirable signal is interfering with the desired signal, the squelch can be increased to eliminate the unwanted noise, making the desired signal more clear.

We need to create and apply our own internal squelch circuitry. We need to reduce the information that is noise, the information that interferes with the desired signals. It is important to learn to tweak our squelch. We may need to turn up the dial at times.

Sometimes interference is difficult to recognize as such. Marketers disguise their messages as a signal. I am not saying this is bad in itself. Each person has to decide whether the marketing message is noise or signal.

Learn to squelch the noise. You'll free up a lot of time.