Originally Posted by
djpraska
A good friend of mine told me that the solar activity and flares have been very highly lately, so perhaps the high E-M fields and particles emitted from the sun have changed some electrical states in the radios.
Speaking as a 35 year electronics tech, former Field Applications Engineer for JVCKenwood and 40 year Ham Radio operator: no. First of all, E-M fields from the sun THAT strong are essentially impossible.
Second, (and this has been the case for several years) K7RA reports a very quiet sun, in keeping with the current sunspot minimum.
Read about it here:
https://qrznow.com/the-k7ra-solar-update-64/
As to what is going on, your radio is over twelve years old. You can pull the battery cable off for 1/2 minute, if that resets things fine. Otherwise, it is way past time to get a new AM/FM head. Once you hear the audio from the modern heads, you won't miss that old thing at all. I speak from experience here, my $85 JVC head outperform the crappy, two channel POS unit that came with our cars to the point that I can't stand listening to a Crossfire with factory sound.