HamClock Launcher — Release Notes

This release bundles HamClock 4.30, which brings new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.30.0 release. No changes have been made to the launcher itself; this update exists to bundle the new client and its updated User Guide.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.30

• Reorganized pane picker — panes are now grouped into categories and chosen from an inline accordion instead of a popup, with shortened labels for long entries, custom ordering within each category, and keyboard navigation using the arrow keys and space bar
• New Eclipse pane — solar eclipse information, drawn with a real moon glyph and able to open the related website directly
• WEFAX fetching — HamClock can now pull WEFAX imagery from the Open HamClock Backend
• IOTA support in the On The Air pane, plus better handling when an organization has no spots to report
• DX Cluster filtering — filter spots by mode and by band, and toggle IOTA markers on the map
• Tropical weather options — a new options link makes the Trop Wx settings easier to find, the storm path on the map can be turned on or off, and there is now a direct link to open the JTWC page
• UTC / local time toggle — clicking the UTC button now switches the display over to local time
• More lightning — the strike limit has been raised to 9,999
• HTTP 304 support for smarter caching, and movie handling moved to the backend
• Updated User Guide covering all 4.30 features — bundled with this release as HamClockUserGuide.pdf

Fix Notable Bug Fixes

• Fixed vertical centering of the callsign
• Redrawing the UTC button no longer erases the MOTD mailbox icon
• Track arrows no longer run off the edge of the map, thanks to unified handling of segment spans

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.30.0 release notes.

This release bundles HamClock 4.29, which brings new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.29.0 release. The bundled User Guide has been renamed to match upstream; otherwise the launcher is unchanged.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.29

• Political boundaries on the map — country borders, US state lines on zoomed maps, and Canadian province lines are now drawn, making it much easier to place a station at a glance. Borders are on by default
• Customizable border colors — national and state borders can each be set to a color of your choosing
• Borders on Clouds and Terrain maps — boundary overlays can be toggled on or off independently for these map styles
• Snappier satellite tracks — the satellite footprint now refreshes every 5 seconds instead of waiting for the full 30-second map sweep

Fix Notable Bug Fixes

• Fixed the magnetic bearing in the DX pane, which could display as NaN
• Cleaned up stray pixels in the status line
• Tropical weather no longer bleeds over the edge of the map, and the zoom level display is now consistent
• Storms are now drawn on top of lightning rather than behind it
• Fixed label crowding in the color editor

New Launcher Changes

• The bundled User Guide is now named HamClockUserGuide.pdf, matching upstream (it was previously HamClockKey.pdf). Help → HamClock User Guide works exactly as before

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.29.0 release notes.

This release bundles HamClock 4.28, which brings new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.28.0 release. No changes have been made to the launcher itself; this update exists to bundle the new client and its updated User Guide.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.28

• Satellite alerts via hams.at — upcoming pass alerts sorted newest to oldest, with hover details and satellite co-visibility so you can see when two stations have the same satellite in view
• The seven classical planets — solar system bodies can now be displayed, with popup details for each
• New Mesh Mon pane for monitoring mesh network activity
• New RSG pane — opened by clicking the NOAA SpaceWx pane
• ONTA improvements, including PARKS retrieval that now behaves the same way as regular ONTA retrieval
• Larger, more realistic ADS-B aircraft icons on the map, plus a refreshed icon set throughout
• Three-button mouse support — the middle and right buttons are now both usable
• Updated User Guide covering all 4.28 features — the new HamClockKey.pdf is bundled with this release

Fix Notable Bug Fixes

• Tropical weather rotation fixes, and corrected lat/lon handling so tropical weather now displays in all map projections
• Dismissing a planet popup no longer erases the map overlay; popups now wait for an in-progress map sweep to finish before appearing
• The status line continues to update while a message popup is open
• Corrected the install-instructions link on page 9
• Irrelevant build warnings are now suppressed

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.28.0 release notes.

This release bundles HamClock 4.27, which brings new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.27.0 release. The version number of the HamClock Launcher now mirrors the client version numbers.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.27

• Active Nets pane — see nets currently on the air via NetLogger, with hover details, an info box, and a one-click web search for any net
• Space Launches pane — a new pane listing upcoming launches, including launch complex locations on the map and links to Wikipedia
• Satellite sky view — a star-field sky view for tracking passes
• Satellite frequencies with live Doppler — uplink/downlink frequencies and modes shown with active Doppler correction
• HF and VHF band conditions from HamQSL — an additional source for at-a-glance propagation
• Tropical weather refinements — storm data refreshed every 10 minutes, more legible track arrows, map hover details, and a direct link to open the NHC page for a storm
• Message of the Day in a native display box, with the ability to launch any link it contains

Fix Notable Bug Fixes

• Tropical storm graphics now scale correctly when zooming the map
• Rounding and displayed digits corrected in numeric readouts
• Fixed the disappearing map icon issue
• Fixed overlapping entries in the satellite list
• PSKReporter fetches now use jitter and exponential backoff, recovering more gracefully when the service is busy
• Left-clicks are no longer misclassified; on-screen hints work again
• VOACAP requests now time out after 15 seconds instead of hanging

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.27.0 release notes.

This release bundles HamClock 4.26, which brings new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.26.0 release. The version number of the HamClock Launcher now mirrors the client version numbers.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.26

• New Maidenhead+ and Message of the Day (MOTD)
• Larger storm circles, support for pan/zoom when clicking on storm, larger text and fix scrolling in Tropical Wx Pane
• Tropical Wx UX Improvements

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.26.0 release notes.

This release bundles HamClock 4.25, which brings new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.25.0 release. No changes have been made to the launcher itself; this update exists to bundle the new client.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.25

• Tropical weather reporting and cyclone tracks — new cyclone and tropical weather data displayed on the map
• Satellite UX improvements — a Refresh button for TLEs, shortened “Select Satellites” label, and improved handling when a satellite disappears from view
• Improved lightning rendering — better bolt sizing and decluttering across all resolutions
• Optional config file metadata — useful for power users and scripted setups

Fix Notable Bug Fixes

• Mapped ports are now saved correctly
• Lightning requests now include the user agent, fixing issues with some backend servers
• Fixed NCDXF lightning ghost rotation visual glitch

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.25.0 release notes.

This release bundles HamClock 4.24, which brings significant new features and bug fixes from the Open HamClock 4.24.0 release. No changes have been made to the launcher itself; this update exists to bundle the new client and its updated User Guide.

New Highlights from HamClock 4.24

• Lightning strikes on the map — display real-time lightning data (sourced from Blitzortung), including configurable concentric range rings
• Advanced propagation maps and band conditions with new backend support, including reload when the antenna configuration changes
• VOACAP pane improvements — a white border around “now” and a NOW arrow indicating current modeled conditions
• Environment variable overrides for first-run defaults, useful for scripted setups and power users
• Updated User Guide covering all 4.24 features — the new HamClockKey.pdf is bundled with this release

For the complete list of changes and bug fixes, see the upstream 4.24.0 release notes.

This release removes the ClearSkyInstitute legacy server option, which is no longer the default in the Open HamClock ecosystem. It is replaced with three explicit backend choices: Open HamClock Backend (the new default), hamclock.com, and a Custom option for any other OpenHamClock-compatible server.

New Features

• Three-way backend selection — choose between Open HamClock Backend (ohb.hamclock.app:80), hamclock.com (hamclock.com:80), or a Custom Open HamClock Backend with a user-supplied host:port
• Automatic migration of server preferences on first launch of 1.3: users on the legacy ClearSkyInstitute server are moved to Open HamClock Backend; saved custom hosts matching a preset (ohb.hamclock.app:80 or hamclock.com:80) are mapped to the corresponding radio button; all other saved hosts remain under the Custom option with their value preserved
• Bundled User Guide — HamClockKey.pdf now ships inside the app and opens in your default PDF viewer (typically Preview), removing the dependency on an external website for the user guide

Notes

• The HamClock website link and attribution in the About dialog have been updated to reflect the Open HamClock project at github.com/openhamclock/hamclock, crediting both Elwood Charles Downey (SK, 2020–2025) as the original developer and Dave Koberstein as the current maintainer

This release adds backend server selection to support the amateur radio community following the passing of Elwood Downey (WB0OEW, SK), the original creator of HamClock. By default the legacy ClearSkyInstitute server is still used, but other HamClock backends can used, such as the OpenHamClock-Backend community project and other hamclock servers. This ensures that the HamClock continues to function for the amateur radio community.

New Features

• Backend server selection — Choose between the ClearSkyInstitute legacy server (default) or any OpenHamClock-compatible server by entering a hostname:port address
• Persistent server settings — Your server choice and host:port are remembered between sessions using macOS preferences
• Adds a new Tools menu with a Clear HamClock cache command. This will clear the downloaded files in HamClock's cache while preserving the user settings. It may be useful when switching servers to clear HamClock's cache.
• Release Notes menu item added under Help

Fix Bug Fixes

• Patched HamClock client to ensure satellite TLE data is retrieved from the selected backend server on startup, resolving issues with stale TLE data from the legacy server

Notes

• The HamClock autoupdate feature is not compatible with the launcher. Each new HamClock version requires a new DMG release. An autoupdate mechanism for the launcher itself is planned for a future release.

New Features

• Updated DMG download links and GitHub Pages website
• Separated Apple Silicon and Intel Mac download targets
• Improved header copy to clarify macOS-only support and bundled binaries

Initial public release of HamClock Launcher.

New Features

• wxPython GUI wrapping the HamClock web binaries
• Resolution selection via radio buttons (800x480, 1600x960, 2400x1440, 3200x1920)
• Real-time output capture and display with configurable line limit
• One-click browser launch to http://localhost:8081/live.html
• Graceful shutdown with confirmation prompt if HamClock is running
• Edit menu (Copy, Select All) and Help menu (User Guide, About)
• DMG installers for both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs with all HamClock binaries bundled