Atomic Clocks Set To DST 1 Day Early!

[Hooligan]

Gary: Starting This past December 30th, DW's laptap would not work online, every site she went to a warning came up. "Security certificate out of date this site may be untrustworthy and could pose a hazard to your computer" Did several reboots with no change. Noticed the Date/time on the task bar was year 2212. (computer is a year old, Win7)
Went in and changed the date on the computers clock, it worked normally until turned off, then time went to 2213 again. Went to tech support, "may be an end of year glitch but had never heard of this happening". After midnight New Years eve it corrected itself.

Since the Mayan calendar ran out, I think we a losing sand from the hourglass, a little at a time....

[Francesca]

Lacrosse has a little section on the timechange at its website, noting that sometimes it may take a day or two to see the clock make the change. But nothing about early changes!

Since more than one person has had the same problem, though, I wonder if the problem isn't with the signal itself. The "clocks" we all have are after all just radio receivers operating off a signal they get...have there been sunspots lately or anything????

[GaryKD]

Got up this morning and all clocks were on DST. I did not stay up to see if anything unusual happened at 2 AM. At my age, hearing the 10 PM news is quite an accomplishment.

[Dunner]

Mine is a 13" Timex and has a DST disable button for non-DST areas. Musta worked, as the time is correct.

[marvel]

Originally Posted by GaryKD

I have several atomic clocks. These are the clocks that are set, automatically, by the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. Got up this morning and did a double take. The clocks were set to DST last night! Anybody else have the same happen to them?

I'm in Oregon, quite a ways from Florida, and had the same experience. The clock set itself to DST early. I noticed it when I was going to set an antique pendulum clock forward. My atomic clock is Sky Scan.

Perhaps we are both in the same time warp! Da da da da da da

[glarnold]

Gary, a couple of questions. You said they are all analog. How do they change? Do the hands move backwards at 2 ? And do they have an AM/PM indicator? Since you changed the batteries all in January, is there a chance they were all set at 12 hours early? If so, would they change at 2 pm, rather than 2 am the next morning?

Just curious.

GL Arnold

[Ray,IN]

I bought an atomic clock about 10 years ago, It never has reset automatically since the government changed the DST date. Yes, it's set properly.

[Wayne M]

Someone just want to make sure you get to where you are going "on time."

[Bob King]

I have 2 clocks that reset for DST. One of them is always a week late but the other is on time. I think they both work off a built in program rather then WWV. One manufacturer said that it would have to be set manually ( a couple of years ago) and then would be ok from then on. So far it has been working as it should

[SCVJeff]

I have 2 manual clocks: the microwave, and a watch. The others all rolled over at 2AM Pacific. There are some manufacturers that check in only once a day, and if that bit wasn't set when it got sync, the clock does nothing until it does.

Dont forget that the dates changed a few years ago, and some WWV clocks get coo-coo on the new date

[GaryKD]

Hi glarnold,
It matters not spring or fall. The hands of the clock rotate quite fast in the clockwise direction. In the spring they rotate one hour. In the fall they rotate 11 hours. It takes a minute or so in the fall. There is no am or pm. There is no date or time. The clocks only tell time, hours and minutes.

[glarnold]

Gary, thank you for that information. It helps in understanding what's happening. Now I'm really curious how the clock knows whether it is AM or PM, to change the time by an hour? And I wonder if you were to set one clock ahead by twelve hours (still showing the same time as the others), if it would act differently in the fall?

Can you plan to let us know come November?

Thanks.

GL Arnold

[Wayne M]

Gary,

Information is free, send NIST an email asking questions.

nist.radio@boulder.nist.gov