Rockets, Sunspots, And Radios

We chase a week of strange headlines and real-world signals: a refined profile of Jupiter, an xAI–SpaceX shuffle, a calm stretch in quakes, and a noisy sun that toys with radios and GPS. We end with a clear correction on HF time-signal frequencies and how to use them well.

• value for value model and why we keep it free
• Jupiter’s refined equatorial profile and what it means
• xAI merging with SpaceX and possible motives
• seven-day earthquake counts trending lower
• sunspot activity, multiple X-class flares, KP swings
• HF time signals on 5, 10, and 15 MHz, propagation habits
• simple resilience tips for comms and navigation
• how to contact us with comments and ideas



Go to our website, look at the contact page. You can comment by doing a recording or by leaving us a comment. You can also email us at the ugly quacking duck at gmail.com. Or you can get on many of the players; on the details where it talks about the podcast, there’s a link there, you can click on it and leave us a text, a comment. We’ll read it off and let you be part of the show. But however you do it, just do it. Let us know you’re out there, let us know you’re listening, give us your comments. If you have something you’d want to hear about or talk about, let us know, okay?

Chapters

• 0:00 Banter And Show Opener
• 1:07 Rockets, Sun Spots, Radios
• 2:36 Groundhog Day And Scheduling
• 4:42 Jupiter’s “Slimmer” Profile News
• 7:25 Musk’s xAI And SpaceX Shuffle
• 9:51 Seven-Day Earthquake Snapshot
• 12:38 Sunspot Activity And X Flares
• 15:43 Radio Frequency Correction
• 18:17 Thank You
• 18:31 Value For Value
• 21:22 Closing Blessing And Sign-Off

Transcript

Bruce: 0:01

What does rockets, sunspots, and radios have in common?

Capella: 0:07

Welcome to the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast, the worst podcast in the unknown universe. Or at least that's what some people say. We prefer to think of ourselves as charmingly rough around the edges. We're passionate about podcasting and the value for value model, where creators and listeners connect directly. We believe in keeping our content free and open to everyone, because who needs another paywall, right?

Bruce: 0:29

Welcome to the Midwest, Southern Illinois studio where we do our recordings. And you are now listening to episode 136.

Sunny: 0:41

Oh yeah, 136. Welcome everybody. I'm glad to have you aboard. And if you're part of our flop, thank you for coming back.

Bruce: 0:54

Yes, sir. We want to thank everyone for being here, being part of our show. If you are new to our episode and our podcast, welcome.

Sunny: 1:06

Hey, Bruce. Yeah. Hey, what does rockets, sunspots, and radios have in common?

Bruce: 1:17

Well, I'm glad you was paying attention when I started out this episode. That's a good question. What does rockets, sunspots, and radios have in common? Well the answer is this episode, of course.

Sunny: 1:33

Oh I just had to throw that in.

Bruce: 1:42

I noticed. I I need to get you set away from all the buttons. You know, I thought I'd put you closer to the studio function so you could help me out, but uh I hope that's not a mistake.

Sunny: 1:58

Oh no, you'll find I do a really good job.

Bruce: 2:03

Okay, well I'm gonna trust that I'm not gonna regret it.

Sunny: 2:09

You won't, trust me.

Bruce: 2:11

Ha ha famous last words.

Sunny: 2:14

Oh, you can trust me, Bruce. When have I ever let you down?

Bruce: 2:25

I'm not going there.

Sunny: 2:27

Alright, on a serious note, I've been wanting to ask you, and you've been running around here so busy. Did Phil see his shadow?

Bruce: 2:39

What do you mean I've been w running around here so busy? I've been by you almost all week.

Sunny: 2:46

Yeah, but you've been projecting or projecting or working on something the whole time.

Bruce: 2:55

Well, that's very true. I've got several little projects I've been trying to accomplish, and I go back to work at the end of this week. And by the way, this is a Wednesday while we're trying to record this. No, Thursday. I'm sorry. Thursday, the fifth, and I'm trying to get this recorded because I go back to work uh for the weekend, and I'm not gonna be able to do our normal recording on Friday and Saturday. So once again, my schedule is set a different schedule. But to answer your question, yes, Phil seen his shadow. So according to legend, we're gonna get six more weeks of winter. So if everybody liked the cold, extreme snow and all that stuff that we've had so far, then expect more, according to Phil. My vote's in for springtime, so if we get 50, 60 degree weather and everything melts and uh we have to dry up some mud, that's good for me. I'm gonna be very happy.

Sunny: 4:10

Well, I don't think I like more cold weather. I'm kinda like you, Bruce. I like it warm. I like chasing the cats outside when it's warm, not in the snow. No fun.

Bruce: 4:26

I think if you hang around me more, you're gonna act more like me, so it may not be a good idea.

Sunny: 4:33

Nah, we're doing good. Don't worry about it.

Bruce: 4:41

Well, while we're talking about weirdness, you know, everybody's got these diets are going on they have for years, and now you can get diet shots to lose weight. Um, there's all kinds of little gimmicks to help you lose weight. But did you know apparently Jupiter went on a diet? That's right. It has ha a slimmer profile. Jupiter lost weight.

Sunny: 5:12

Oh, you're being silly.

Bruce: 5:15

No, really, I'm telling the truth. That giant plant that we all looked up to, see it in the sky at night, you know, the bright light. It has actually lost size.

Sunny: 5:31

Now how can that planet go on a diet and lose size? Is that what you said?

Bruce: 5:40

Well, let me tell you, Sonny, that's exactly what happened. Apparently they've did some recalculating. Again, there you go. Mathematics to the rescue. But they've took new data, recalculated, and the planet has got flatter and smaller. And if you want to read about it, uh you can go to physic org and that's p-hys.org. Look up their news page, and the title's Jupiter's Slimer Profile. Giant planet revealed to be narrower at equator. So there you go, you have it. I've told you, don't believe everything you hear and see. Jupiter is smaller, it went on a diet.

Sunny: 6:42

Oh boy. Um, I don't believe you.

Bruce: 6:50

That's all right, because it's true. I got it off the web. You know everything's true on the web.

Sunny: 6:56

Oh good grief. Oh, and just because it comes from a science page, we're supposed to believe that, right?

Bruce: 7:08

Well, it's from NASA's Juno mission. And you know, NASA tells us everything that's true.

Sunny: 7:16

All right, there we are. You better go to the next problem.

Bruce: 7:25

All right, we'll go on to the next little subject I have uncovered. Did you know that Elon Musk has created an XAI company? I think that's what he calls it, XAI, and it's his AI um grok, so he put X, which is his old Twitter, and AI, his Grok companies together to form XAI. And now XI X AI is being uh purchased, I guess you could say it's purchased, is being combined with space X. Um, so that's gonna be an interesting combination. We'll see what all that means and why he's doing all that, if it's just some way to move money around or some way to cover up other things. Kind of weird, you know, why he wouldn't keep them separate. But he's putting them all together. So we'll have to see what happens, and I know the XAI is being probed right now because of some controversy going on with um the images that has been generated on Grok. So there's more to that than meets the eye, folks. We'll have to wait and see.

Sunny: 9:03

Well, maybe he's just covering up some trouble he's in with uh SpaceX and Twitter or X and Grok. So you just combine all the trouble into one and then get rid of it. What do you think?

Bruce: 9:24

I don't know what to think. That's that could be. We'll have to wait and see what comes out of it, but who knows? Well, how about our seven-day earthquake report?

Sunny: 9:42

Yeah, we need to do that and the sun report.

Bruce: 9:47

Okay, we'll add all that in there a little bit anyway. So the seven day earthquake report as of wait a minute, I better share this with you.

Sunny: 9:59

Oh yeah, you better tell 'em.

Bruce: 10:02

Well, we started recording this uh episode on Wednesday because I had to work on Friday and Saturday. Well, I ended up getting interrupted right in the halfway point uh of this recording, so I'm now recording it the rest of it, and we're starting off with a seven-day earthquake report, but it is Friday evening after I got off work, so um that's gonna bring the seven-day report right to bear at the right time, which I try to do it every Friday on paper. So that's what we're gonna do. So the seven-day earthquake report, looking at 2626, which is today, and backing up seven days, we have 1,867 all-magnitude earthquakes, which gives us 18.67%. We have as of today, 2.5 and over earthquakes, 247, which gives us 13.23 percent, which is a kind of high, but that's because our all magnitudes were low. And then we got uh 4.5 and over 87 of those, which gave us 4.66%, which is again a little bit high, but it's because our other numbers are low. Um in all reality, all three of the numbers this week are lower, and then as a 6.1 earthquake for the 6.0 and over, only one of them, 6.1, and it's in the commodities, commodic, comadic, I'm not sure how to say the islands of New Zealand. Yep, that gave us a 1.15 percent of six and over earthquakes. So actually, the earthquakes have been lower for the last couple weeks. I hope they continue that uh trend, and maybe we won't have any big earthquakes. I just hope it's not slowed down and it's gonna get worse later on.

Sunny: 12:21

Yeah, I hope we don't have a big one. Shock us. Yeah, that wouldn't be any fun, would it?

Bruce: 12:30

No, it would not be any fun at all. But anyway, on with the sun report. The sun has been very, very active. Uh we've had uh a big sunspot that has turned toward the earth, releasing a lot of um magnetism, garbage, and some X-flares. So as of today, February the 6th, 2026, the sun has turned out six X flares. Um as of February the 1st, we had an X1 and X eight, which gave us a CME that hit us on the fourth. And then on the fourth, we also had an X4 flare, and uh it did not produce any CMEs as of yet. Uh, but there was some more CMEs coming, was supposed to hit us between the 5th and the 8th. Uh we'll see what happens. We haven't had any yet. Uh but the uh KP has been a little bit wanky over the week, going up and down around noon is usually the high points for Central America or Central America, Central Time here in southern Illinois around noon. We're six hours behind, I believe, so that would be uh around 1800 UTC time, I do believe. But later in the day on UTC time, the KP usually falls and it gets a little bit more quiet. Usually, unless we're having a storm. So here lately it's been kind of up and down, up and down, between four, five, and then drops down to three. It even hit two one day. Uh today it was at four, and then it dropped down right now to three point three. So it's kind of hard to tell what the KP is going to be doing. That is the KP index. And the sunspot's been weighing up and down um a little bit. Right now it's 139 with that great big sunspot starting to turn away from us, but they're still expecting another X flare from it, and we've not had one yet.

Sunny: 15:01

Well, that might be a good thing. We don't need a big X flare and a big storm that could really, you know, mess up communications, GPS, and a number of other things.

Bruce: 15:17

You are absolutely right, and it would be very dangerous for our electronics, our power grid, if it was a major one. So far we haven't had one of those, so yeah. And the earthquakes have been lower the last week. I don't know if any of that has anything to do with each other. We'll just keep watching and see. I do want to make a correction when I uh gave a report, I think it was two weeks ago. Not sure. I haven't went back and looked it up, but I did report on the radio waves that I was checking. I checked it on the time um radio time um signal and how much it was up and down and stuff, but I gave the frequency of 10,000 and 15,000. That's not correct. It's 15 megahertz and 10 megahertz and five megahertz, is where I check it. The thousand part comes in when I look at my radio dial, it has a 10.000.00. And uh I just wrote it down for 10.000, but I didn't put the point in there, which when I read it off, it looked like it was 10,000. I misread it, misled everybody. But to correct that, I do my signal reports off of 10 megahertz, 5 megahertz, and 15 megahertz, which is um the UTC time signals. And I didn't do it tonight because uh didn't have time to go switch my antennas. Plus, it's evening and the KP's low, so the signal's gonna be good. It just is. So uh I'll keep an eye on it. I'll report that on the next uh seven-day report.

Sunny: 17:16

Yeah, you better get it straight, Bruce. Misleading everybody. Shame on you.

Bruce: 17:24

Well, don't make it sound that bad.

Sunny: 17:26

Well, you did.

Bruce: 17:28

Well, okay, maybe I did, but yeah, we're gonna do better. I wanna do something, Bruce. All right, Sonny, what do you want to do? Just wait. All right, you picked up my toy over there, didn't you?

Sunny: 17:48

Yeah, I did. Let's move on.

Bruce: 17:52

Okay. I'm glad you tell me what to do.

Sunny: 17:55

Well, somebody needs to.

Bruce: 17:57

All right, well, I agree with you. Let's just move on. Um, I tried to keep this episode short, do a couple news stories, and do the seven-day earthquake report. Um, we're gonna let you guys go, but we want to say one more time we appreciate you tuning in and being part of the show and being part of us.

Sunny: 18:24

Yeah, we do. So let's go on with the uh value for value.

Capella: 18:32

There are many ways you can show your support for the Uggy Quacking Duck Podcast. First, simply keep us in your thoughts and prayers and maybe send good vibes too. Second, spread the word. Tell your friends about us, even the ones with questionable taste in podcasts. Third, share your talents. If you have skills in technology, art, or anything else that could help us, we'd love to hear from you. And finally, consider supporting us financially. Equipment, hosting, and website costs add up, and any contribution is greatly appreciated. We promise not to spend it all on rubber duckies, unless you want us to. Thank you for your support.

Bruce: 19:10

We do really appreciate you coming aboard, taking part in our episodes, and enjoying the podcast. Now we would really like it if you would make yourself known out there.

Sunny: 19:25

Yeah, we want to hear from everybody.

Bruce: 19:29

Okay, we do. And there's a couple different ways you can do that. Go to our website, uh, look at the contact page. Uh, you can actually, it's comment, I believe. You can comment uh by doing a recording by leaving us a comment. You can also email us at the ugly quacking duck at gmail.com. Or um you can get on um many of the players. Uh I use podcast guru, but on the details where it talks about the podcast, you can there's a link there, you can click on it and leave us a text, a comment. We'll read it off and let you be part of the show. But however you do it, just do it. Let us know you're out there, let us know you're listening, give us your comments. Uh, if you have something you'd want to uh hear about or talk about, let us know, okay?

Sunny: 20:35

Yeah, that's what's kind of fun when we hear from our audience or listeners, especially if you're part of the flock. We can have lots of fun. We can do secret talking if you want.

Bruce: 20:51

No, I don't think we want to do that, do we?

Sunny: 20:54

Well, why not? I like to talk to people and you don't know about it.

Bruce: 21:00

Oh boy. Okay. Enough of that, I guess. But yes, we would like to hear from you. So that's the way you can do it. Uh go to my website, the uglyquacking duck.com, and look around if you've not been on there. If you've been on there, let us know what you think, okay? We again want to thank you for being part of the show.

Sunny: 21:24

Yes, we do. Thank you very much, everybody. This is Sonny, and we want to say bye.

Bruce: 21:32

This is Bruce, and we're gonna say bye also. May the father's love always go with you. And seventy-three, everybody.