[Dxbase] DX time oops

[Peter Dougherty]

At 07:04 04-05-05, FireBrick wrote:
>Pete
>The time should be calculated by Windows, go to the Time Applet in Control 
>Panel, make sure you have your time set properly and THAT YOU CHECKED, 
>'Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes'
>
>It's on the Time Zone Tab of the Date and Time Properties.

Oh dear,

I think I may have confused a few folks in discussing the "DX TIME" problem 
yesterday.

What I am referring to is the marvellous little box within the summary 
window of DX Base 2006. It's the information box below "distance" and to 
the left of "sunset." The only thing this box does is show what the local 
time is of the station you are trying to work or that just popped up on a 
spot. In other words, if you see a spot for an FO station in Tahiti, and 
it's 10am where you are sitting. What's the local time in Papeete? Do you 
wish him good morning or good evening or is in the middle of the night? 
That's all this one's for, not for logging, record keeping or anything 
else; just simply as a way for you to get a sense of what time of day it is 
for the other bloke you're talking to.

My local time zone is set correctly and set for DST. At this moment it is 
10:52 AM, Eastern Daylight Savings Time. It is displayed correctly by 
Windows in the system tray. Immediately above it, in DX Base, is the UTC 
clock, which tracks the locally-set system time and adds the correct offset 
- it shows 14:52:ss at present.

Now, I put my own call into the log, or that of someone in my own time 
zone. In the DX TIME box, it displays 09:52, and not 10:52 as it should. 
Likewise, if I enter the call of a station in Chicago, one hour behind NYC, 
it shows at 08:52, not 09:52, etc. Finally, if I enter a spot for a station 
in London, UK (in the SE9 postcode, nearest licensed ham to Greenwich), it 
displays 14:52 (UTC, not daylight time - London is UTC +1 in the summer). 
On the other hand, if I enter a VK2 call at present, in Sydnes, NSW, his 
local time is correct since Australia has reverted back to standard time.

In other words, DST was never factored into the equation for this applet.



>----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Dougherty (W2IRT)" <w2irt at nac.net>
>To: <dxbase at mailman.qth.net>
>Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 5:08 PM
>Subject: [Dxbase] DX time oops
>
>
>>Just found a slight bug in the DX Time info. Either that or I'm caught in 
>>a time warp. Entered my own call and it showed the "DX" time 1 hour 
>>behind my station's. Looks like it tracks UTC -X or UTC +X standard time 
>>and DST is not taken into account. Hrmmm. I'm not so worried about 
>>central-asia's daylight/standard time settings, but North/South American 
>>and European times should track DST and non-DST, IMHO.
>>
>>Oh well, not a major problem, but a patch for this would be kinda nice.
>
>
>- pjd
>
>W2IRT