I was on Jim's board as well. Gosh I'm gonna have to sit and remember when.
Me too, and I think his basic theory is that just as the moon and sun affect the ocean tides, they may very well affect the earth with the same "pulls." People who live on the coasts, especially the West Coast, are familiar with some of the worst tides (and flooding, like on New Year's Eve) that often occur when a torrential rain storm hits at the same time as an effective lunar-solar tidal combination. Then you see things like the photos seen on the web the last few days. When I lived there, this happened most often in early January because the regular rainy season is going strong and/or around the Winter Solstice.
It makes perfect sense that both the moon and the sun may "pull" on the Earth and/or the water aquifers underneath the earth that affect the fault lines.
As usually happens with new theories, no matter how logical, if they are too far "out there" from previous ideas, his ideas were utterly rejected by the official Academic Earth Quake community. Instead of actively setting up studies to either verify or disprove any apparent connections, they just tried to make him into a crank.
This is another sad example of "The Science" not doing actual science to protect the reputations and careers of those already in positions of power and authority and earning a paycheck. Jim continued researching far into retirement, and not everything he found was positive. He looked for a possible connection between Great Quakes and Sun Spots but couldn't find any, the same with the positions of the other planets related to the Earth (or at least he hadn't when the board went to a paid membership, and I had to leave).
There was a connection with overall geological activity during lengthy solar minimums like the Little Ice Age, but not with any particular sunspot.
We also had forum members back then that were working on picking up electrical pulses and using ham radios to try to check radio and/or electronic signals given off before significant quakes (volcanoes do this). That may be "the signal" that is being talked about here.
If folks in the local area want to, they should check with the local shelters if there has been any considerable increase in run-away or lost pets in the last couple of weeks (ignoring New Year's fireworks).
I will close by something my Native Elder friend once said but has been said by many people, I think he told me the particular proverb was Pomo (Californian Tribe, but I'm not sure):
"When the Wild Four Leggegeds come into the village, and the Tame Four Leggegeds flee the village, then it is likely that an Earthquake is about to happen."