Major work includes: rewriting the VOACAP propagation engine with cubic interpolation, building weather pressure maps in both millibar and inHg units at five resolutions, adding aurora map generation, real-time PSK Reporter spot data, Kp index from NOAA SWPC, overhauling satellite TLE tracking, and hardening the entire server for production use serving 1,600+ HamClocks.
With the passing of HamClock creator Elwood Downey (WB0OEW) on January 29 of this year, HamClock will stop working in June unless users point their installations to a new backend service. Updating existing HamClock installations is a relatively simple task. Users several options, including updating their hosts file, or updating the command used to start HamClock. Both require only simple text changes. Full instructions are on hamclock.com.
Hamclock.com is run by Bruce Edrich (W4BAE), to whom, along with his team of contributors, the ham community owes a huge debt of gratitude.
In Bruce's words:
HamClock was created by Elwood Downey, WB0OEW — an engineer who built one of the most popular shack displays in amateur radio and gave it away for free. Elwood became a Silent Key on January 29, 2026.
I first reached out to Elwood back in August 2019. I told him I thought HamClock had real potential beyond the shack — that it could be a product, a service, something bigger. He wrote back:
"No, it's not exclusive at all. You could use my source and do the same thing if you want, no problem. That's the weird thing about open source software. You don't make money from the code itself. You make money by adding value."
That conversation stuck with me. I registered hamclock.com that same year.
Life got in the way. Years passed. When Elwood became a Silent Key and the June 2026 shutdown was announced, I knew it was time to act. This backend server — keeping your existing HamClock running — is and will always be a free community service. That's a promise. Down the road, I may build new products and features on top of Elwood's foundation, exactly the way he encouraged. But HamClock Classic will never stop working because of a paywall.
Elwood's final release, version 4.22, included the -b flag — a backend override that lets any HamClock point to an alternate server. He gave us the tool and the time.
This server exists because of Elwood. I intend to keep his work running for as long as there are hams who depend on it.
I've been running HamClock on the new backend for a couple of days now and I'm very happy with it. There are occasionally subtle differences from the old backend, and in my opinion, HamClock is all the better for them. Some of these new advantages include:I want to thank everyone who has donated their time helping troubleshoot issues, and those who have contributed through PayPal to help cover the backend hosting costs. This community has been incredible.
Running hamclock.com is like working on a car engine in a car going down the road — while also working a day job, raising a 14-year-old as a single father, and trying to get some decent sleep somewhere in between. Most of you are cheering me on, and I'm grateful for that. A small few are throwing rocks — and that's okay. I expected some people wouldn't be happy with this. Some folks aren't happy with free if it isn't free their way. If you don't like my flavor of free or my project, you're welcome to wait for the stragglers to do something...
Let's be honest about what people actually want: they want their HamClock to work. They don't want to stand up their own server. They don't want to learn git. They don't know Linux server administration and they shouldn't have to. The "just self-host it" crowd makes it sound simple — clone a repo, run a script, done. It's not. This backend pulls from over 40 upstream data sources. Satellites get deorbited and new ones launch. NOAA changes their API formats. Data feeds get moved, blocked, or restructured without warning. It will take frequent curation to keep this thing running cleanly, and it is highly unlikely that any individual is going to roll a perfect solution on their own and keep it that way. I made it so that all you need is one line in /etc/hosts or a -b flag and you're done. That's it. Your clock works. I handle the rest.
When I was a teenager I had a Rottweiler named Max — 160 pounds, looked like a killing machine, but had the soul of a puppy. Never bit anyone his entire life, except once, when someone rough-housed with him during an ear infection. Sickness makes people do the wrong thing too.
I refuse to believe the person who created HamClock wanted it to die with him. And here's what tells me that: the -b flag. Elwood sat down and wrote code — actual new functionality — to let HamClock point at an alternate backend server. That's intent. He wanted someone to pick this up. But here's the thing that breaks my heart — the man who built 40+ data feeds, a full propagation engine, and one of the most brilliant tools in amateur radio didn't need to write that flag at all. Any user can redirect HamClock to a new backend with a single line in /etc/hosts. That's networking 101. The Elwood who built HamClock from scratch would have known that in his sleep. The fact that he spent his remaining energy writing a command-line flag to solve a problem that already had a simpler answer — that tells me sickness had already taken something from him. He was still fighting for HamClock's future, but the sharpness was going. This is just my speculation, but I don't think Elwood meant to throw us under the bus. I think he gave us everything he had left.
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