Techniques maintaining receiver reliability, including determining a present attenuation level for an attenuator, wherein the attenuation level is set by a gain controller, determining a relative reliability threshold based on the present attenuation level, receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal, determining a voltage level of the received RF signal, comparing the voltage level of the received RF signal to the relative reliability threshold to determine that a reliability condition exists, and overriding, in response to the determination that the reliability condition exists, the present attenuation level set by the gain controller with an override attenuation level based on the present attenuation level.