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HamClock with customized views

Easy HamClock on your ASL node

If you wish to install your own HamClock but spare Raspberry Pi single board computers are in limited supply, you can install HamClock on your AllStarLink node. There is a script written to do this and it is easy to use.

I installed HamClock on my ASL node 588412 which runs on a Raspberry Pi 4B computer with 8 Gb of RAM onboard:

588412 RAM
588412 RAM

The script is easy to use and follow: https://github.com/hardenedpenguin/install_hamclock. “This script installs HamClock on a Debian-based system.”

After starting the script, you must choose a screen size for your HamClock:

Building HamClock
Building HamClock

I chose the 1600×960 size on my laptop. Building the program took several minutes. The script finishes by giving you the URLs for the editable version and a read-only version:

HamClock with URLs to access
HamClock with URLs to access

The resulting HamClock looks good. Here’s the HamClock screen without any customizations:

HamClock with default settings
HamClock with default settings

I customized a few settings to yield this pleasant view:

HamClock with customized view
HamClock with customized view

Even though my ASL node does not crontab working, HamClock ran just fine when I rebooted the system.

Note that this is not the Inovato Quadra version that includes WSJT-X and other software. What is installed through the install_hamclock script is the HamClock package by ClearSkyInstitute.com. If you don’t need the other softwares, this is a very easy way to get HamClock in your Shack without the need to acquire more hardware.

This is perhaps the easiest and least expensive way to install a HamClock in your shack, using hardware you may already have, with a script to do the heavy lifting for you. And if you don’t want to install a HamClock, consider Simon’s World Clock, which you install on your PC. It offers quite a bit of functionality, an attractive display, and it’s free: https://www.dit-dit-dit.com/world-map

Simons World Map
Simons World Map

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Tom Salzer

Tom is an Extra Class amateur radio operator licensed in the United States as KJ7T

Tom Salzer KJ7T