Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
Um, what buttons on the back? My kitchen RC clock has none such (probably because just about all of the UK is in the same time zone).
Right. A typical such clock in the U.S. will have one set of radio buttons for Eastern/Central/Mountain/Pacific timezones and a second button labeled "DST" whose precise purpose is unclear without reading the manual. There may also be other button(s) for manual operation.
I don't know what folks do in Hawaii, Alaska and other outlying timezones. At the observatory the issue we have seen is that the various conference rooms will have an array of several clocks, say Hawaii, Tucson, Washington, DC and La Serena, Chile. Originally somebody will have bought 4 spiffy "atomic" clocks without understanding that Chile is not supported.
What then happens is that the clock #4 is gimmicked during northern summer (southern winter) to be Eastern Daylight Time (= Chile Standard Time, GMT-4). During the winter months (southern summer) this fails since DST in Chile is outside the range of the clocks. The model clock I'm thinking of can't have the RC manually disabled, so for half the year, the clock is either wrong or taken down from the wall or replaced with something that no longer matches the other three clocks. (I suppose someone could open it up and disable the radio.)
Evidently, the requirement was never considered for a clock to be located in one place (with one radio standard), but to display time for another place. The market for a general enough clock to be portable to any timezone must be quite slim.
Rob _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
