First boot – what to expect

First boot is meant to be simple by design, and it’s roughly the same
experience regardless of which SKU you’re running:

Insert the SD card (SKU-1) or plug in the USB stick (SKU-2), or just
power on if you’ve got SKU-3 or SKU-4 – power up, and Helioclock comes
up on its own with no manual setup required to get to a working
display.

The first time it starts, you’ll go through a short first-run setup:
your QTH (grid square), callsign, and time zone. That’s it – once
that’s entered, every panel that depends on your location (greyline,
sunrise/sunset, Best Band Now, and others) is ready to go.

If you’re running headless (the primary use case for SKU-1), you don’t
even need a display connected for this – just access the setup from a
browser on another device on the same network, covered in the next
post.