SILENT KEY: ELWOOD DOWNEY, WBØOEW, CREATOR OF HAMCLOCK

As Newsline went to production, we learned of the sudden death of Elwood Downey, WBØOEW, the developer and creator of the popular open-source HamClock software. The popular Linux-based digital information display has been a mainstay in amateur radio shacks, where hams have eagerly awaited updates and new versions.

The revelation that Elwood had become a Silent Key on Thursday, the 29th of January, was accompanied by a message on his clearskyinstitute.com website. It announced his death, adding that the final release of HamClock is version 4.22. All HamClocks are to stop functioning in June of this year. In a separate posting on Facebook, Bruce Kempf, KC3JS, announced that he was halting all sales of turnkey HamClocks until there is a functioning replacement. He asked for fellow HamClock enthusiasts to help find a means to get a functioning server and edit the code to allow this to work.