[paulmd]

"squelch codes" probably conveys the meaning more correctly.

people understand the idiom that just because your radio has squelch set (too high, perhaps) that it doesn't mean someone else can't hear it.

otherwise, CTCSS codes works fine, that's the technical description of what it is. and actually they call them "squelch tones" there. it's only motorola that branded them as "private lines", that's their trademark for an adequately-described term. Much like Tesla "Full Self Driving"/"Autopilot", it's kind of a misnomer and definitely breeds (deserved) confusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Tone-Coded_Squelch_...

[sholladay]

I submit that most non-technical people have no clue what “squelch” means. It’s not a commonly used word outside of electronics. And it makes it sound like your radio’s output is being suppressed, which is inaccurate in this case. I think some more appropriate terms could be “party”, “group”, “topic”, “line”, or “room”.

[paulmd]

the radio literally has a squelch knob on it, and turning the knob is required if you want to not hear static constantly or if you want to hear your traffic when they call you, so if you somehow manage to own a radio without knowing what squelch is it’s kinda on you.

let’s give users at least a little bit of agency here