What risk may occur with excessive gain in a VHF receiver's front end?

Excessive gain in a VHF receiver's front end may lead to increased susceptibility to intermodulation interference. This occurs when two or more strong signals mix together in a non-linear device within the receiver, creating additional signals at frequencies that are the sum or difference of the original frequencies. When gain is set too high, the front end of the receiver can become overloaded, causing it to produce these unwanted intermodulation products, which can mask weaker, desired signals and lead to degraded performance of the receiver.

In contrast, while increased signal distortion, loss of dynamic range, and reduced sensitivity to weak signals are all potential issues encountered in radio receivers, they are different in nature from the problem of intermodulation interference. Excessive gain is particularly relevant to the susceptibility to intermodulation interference because it directly affects how well the receiver can handle multiple signals without producing misleading outputs that can distort the true received information.