OpenHamClock on Raspberry Pi headless as Server

 in General by

We are keeping the setup for this project extremely lean: The Pi 3 runs completely “headless,” meaning without its own desktop interface. OpenHamClock works as a pure server in the background. We skip the monitor on the Pi entirely – instead, I access the clock simply and resource-efficiently via the browser of my iPad (or any other computer in the network).

What we need:

  • A Raspberry Pi (i use in this case a PI3)
  • A MicroSD card
  • The Raspberry Pi Imager on your PC/Mac

Step 1: The right operating system

Since we are skipping the desktop environment, we rely on Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit) (Bookworm). OpenHamClock uses Node.js, for which the 64-bit architecture is more future-proof. Because we aren’t loading a graphical interface, the 1 GB of RAM on the Pi 3 is more than enough.

  1. In the Raspberry Pi Imager, under Raspberry Pi OS (Other), select Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit).
  2. Go to the advanced settings (gear icon) before flashing.
  3. Enter your Wi-Fi credentials right there and make sure to enable SSH access.
  4. Flash the card, insert it into the Pi 3, and power it up.

Step 2: The Installation

As soon as the Pi has booted, connect to the computer via SSH (e.g., using your terminal).

Since we only want to use the Pi as a server, we start the developers’ excellent setup script directly with the --server parameter:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/accius/openhamclock/main/scripts/setup-pi.sh | bash -s -- --server

The script will now download all dependencies and set up the service.

Step 3: Enter your Callsign and Locator

After the installation is complete, we adapt OpenHamClock to your shack. Open the configuration file with the nano editor:

nano ~/openhamclock/.env

Enter your callsign and your locator here. For me, it looks like this:

CALLSIGN=DL1GKK
LOCATOR=JN37VX

Save the file (press CTRL + O, then Enter, and exit with CTRL + X). For the changes to take effect, we briefly restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart openhamclock

Step 4: Open and enjoy!

That’s it! The Raspberry Pi 3 is now running silently in the background. Grab your iPad, Mac, or PC and open your browser. Just enter the IP address of your Raspberry Pi followed by port 3000:

http://<YOUR-PI-IP>:3000

The OpenHamClock dashboard launches directly in the browser.

Disclaimer: This setup was developed in collaboration with Gemini AI. While we’ve worked hard to make this guide as “bulletproof” as possible, tech is always evolving—errors may occur, or specific functions might need a bit of extra tweaking.

The solution? Don’t hesitate to ask Gemini yourself if you get stuck. Good luck with your build!


OpenHamClock Install