Has anyone else here noticed any weird electronics problems in the past few days? There’s some unusual solar activity going on apparently. The incident I noticed, a normally reliable radio lost all of its programming (for which buttons select which stations) for no apparent reason during the overnight on April 20, 2024. Just curious if anyone else is noticing anything unusual electronics-wise?
Nothing in my area, and I know if something strange would have happened, I would have gotten a text from a family member about it with a video or two… 
Maybe it was just a static shock from me walking on the carpet then touching the radio that zapped my radio’s program memory. Just curious b/c this has never happened in 30 years of daily use. Thanks for the good feedback anyway!
1 Like
We had unusual interruptions in out cable TV feed during the national evening news yesterday. The interruption would likely have been in New York rather than here given how I receive signal. Also note that the main disruptions are expected to be Thursday and Friday if the come at all. Finally just because there are solar flares doesn’t mean that the mass ejections are directed at earth. We can see roughly one half of the solar orb at any given time and increased concentrations of the solar wind are a line of sight phenomenon. The Earth cuts a relatively small solid angle with respect to the Sun and the likelihood of any impingement on a specific part of the Earth is small, especially given that the Earth rotates.
1 Like
The only thing I noticed was that the voices and the images on one of my cable channels were badly-synched.
Maybe too much 420?
1 Like
Well, that could also be your issue, it is 30 yo electronics, and how many earthquakes has it been through, things glitch from time to time… lol
1 Like
My Grace Digital internet radios all needed to be reset on Sunday. They must have sent a software update out. So that would be a no.
We’re near a peak of solar activity this year. Long distance AM radio reception goes bad during peaks, but it varies from night to night. I don’t tune around every night, but last night (4/23-24/2024) had especially poor DX conditions.
A linkage with loss of your radio’s presets is unlikely to be related, other than temporally. But more than a few conspiracy “theories” came from (likely) coincidences like that. I keep an open and skeptical mind.
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections can and have caused more serious effects on modern tech, such as power grids. Poor AM DX conditions are more frequent, but less severe, than the worst case scenarios.
I listen to a very small, local, non-profit, low-powered FM station (Ii think they broadcast at like 5K watts). I’m near the fringes of their broadcast range, and the signal always gets trickier this time of year. I don’t know enough to connect it solar activity, but I’ve frequently wondered.
Good comments, thanks. I haven’t noticed much difference in AM radio reception myself. I sometimes listen at night to an AM station from LA, fades in and out as it always does. I haven’t noticed any other suspicious electronics problems so far. The part of the radio that glitched last weekend is powered by a battery, maybe related. I also have a short wave radio, but those bands became nearly unusable with the introduction of compact florescent and led home-lighting.
That must be a very low-powered station!
When I was in my teens, my Sunday night routine included listening to the rock music on WOWO, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, because all of the radio stations in the NYC metro area played only religious programming on Sunday nights. While the signal was weak, it managed to travel–without ever fading-out–about twice the distance as the signal that you get from L.A.
I still remember that one of the major sponsors of WOWO’s Sunday night show was the local McDonald’s franchise (“It’s located at xxxxx on the California Road, folks”. That chain was a mystery to me at the time because they did not come to my part of the US until several years later.
I was driving from Southern Illinois to eastern Indiana back in the winter of 1964. I was travelling at night in my 1954 Buick with the signal seeking a.m. radio. The person riding with me turned on the radio and hit the bar on the radio. A station came in very clearly and we assumed it was an Indianapolis station. The weather kept getting worse, but the announcer on the radio station talked about how nice the weather was. As the snow storm kept getting worse, we found the radio station was in Texas. It faded out after about 10 minutes.
One summer when I was out mowing yard, .my dad called me in. He wanted me to see what was on television. Now we live in east central Indiana. I didn’t see anything strange about the news program until the announcer talked about high tides and low tides for the day. The station was from Corpus Christy, Texas. It stayed on for about 10 minutes and then the Indianapolis station came back on that channel.
Car radios of that era were the best ever. They were heavy, used vacuum tubes, and drew a lot of power from the battery. When transistor radios replaced tube radios in cars (ca. 1960) the glory days were over. Lighter, cheaper, and less power draw were what the carmakers wanted. Actual tech specs like sensitivity, selectivity, and noise rejection were relegated to a lower priority.
You are joking. At least I hope you are.
1 Like
Not joking at all. Sure, there is some nostalgia involved - but for great reception of AM stations, near and far, things went downhill when transistor car radios became the norm. That’s not the fault of the transistors. In the drive to simplify, lighten, miniaturize, and make car radios less expensive, the actual reception performance on the AM band was degraded - as if that was a lesser priority.
Concur, tube radios produce a better quality audio signal. But transistor radios are so much better in other ways —much longer mean time before failure, much lower power use, lower heat production — that tube radios are rarely sold these days, and I much doubt they are factory installed in any new cars at all, even luxury models.
For crying out loud. Why would any vehicle manufacture use an outdated system ?
1 Like
Only if the transistor radio is a poor/cheap design.
2 Likes
+1
When I used to listen to WOWO (Ft Wayne, Indiana) on Sunday nights at my home in Northern NJ, I was using a small '60s era Zenith transistor radio that cost less than $20. Perhaps later models weren’t as good, but that little Zenith was excellent.