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PA3FDQ > TSTH 26.10.97 13:14l 77 Lines 3624 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 3049-PA3FDQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Setting Time (Zone) info
Path: OE1XAB<OE3XZR<OE3XSR<DB0WGS<DB0PV<DB0AAB<DB0SL<DB0RGB<DB0MAK<DB0ERF<
DB0HSK<PI8DRS<PI8DAZ<PI8APD<PI8WNO<PI8NVP
Sent: 971026/0731Z @:PI8NVP.#NH2.NLD.EU #:26536 [JO22HG]WFBB700e $:3049-PA3FDQ
From: PA3FDQ@PI8NVP.#NH2.NLD.EU
To : TSTH@WW
[¯¯¯ TST HOST 1.43b, UTC diff:-1, Local time: Sun Oct 26 08:18:45 1997 ®®®]
Dr. (X)YL/OM,
Summertime coming to it's end in Europe this weekend I thought it prudent to
sent out a short bulletin on how to set or change the time and timezone
information in TSTHOST.
TSTHOST uses two different time representations; an internal clock in it's
own software and the computer system clock. The first is derived from the
latter at startup and is used to time events like beginning and end of a
connection and the time a frame is seen in the monitor screen. The latter
can be seen in the lower right hand corner of the screen. I noticed that
when running TSTHOST for long periods the two times divergate to over a
minute per day. That is why I added a command to a macro that is called in
my .CRN file at 03:00 AM that will do some housekeeping chores. This
command is:
AX CLock SET
It resynchronises the software time to the computer system time. This
command might also solve other problems relating to the two different time
representations and can be used at random manually too. Using it once in a
while will ensure that TSTHOST and the PC agree on local (system) time.
TSTHOST can add a line at the beginning of a message generated from the
keyboard at the PMS, containing some info on the date and time it was
generated. An example is right above this bulletin. It gives the TSTH
version number, the offset time that needs to be added to local time to
obtain UTC or world time, and the local date and time. Most of this info
will be automatically correct as local time and date are derivedfrom the
computer time (which can be changed with the DOS DATE and TIME commands
respectively).
TSTHOST has no way to check for the offset to UTC so it'll look for a
variable TZ for this information. If none is found it defaults to 5 for (to
me at least) unclear reasons, or perhaps this is done because that timezone
is hardly inhabited so it'll be fairly safe to assume any 5 hour offset is
wrong and operators haven't set the TZ variable. (This is still seen quite
often by me!)
Setting the TZ variable is quite easy. First you need to figure out the
time difference between your local time and UTC and weather this is leading
or lagging with respect to UTC. Leading times should be prefixed with the
minus sign (-), lagging times may be prefixed with a plus sign (+). The
result is used to give the correct number in a line like the one below that
needs to be inserted in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is used by the computer
at startup:
SET TZ=UTC-1
This will result in the variable TZ being set to whatever you wrote after
the equal to sign (=). You'll probably have set more variables, you can
check this by typing SET after the DOS prompt, DOS will show you a list.
TSTHOST is not the only program using the TZ variable, I know some
satellite tracking programs do too. Keppler sets used to track satellites
are in UTC so the offset to computer system time needs to be known to the
program to be able to calculate satellite passes correctly.
To determine the sign of the offset to UTC a rule of thumb is: Eastern
Hemisphere uses a minus sign, Western Hemisphere uses a plus sign. If your
country uses summer- and wintertime you need to change the number twice per
year at the same time you change the internal computer clock.
I hope this information is of some use to you,
Best 73 de Paul PA3FDQ@PI8NVP.#NH2.NLD.EU Zoetermeer JO22GB
VERON#510 NL6213 MARAC#005 RNARS#3302 RIS#410 PWGN#1353
Honorary Member of the Happy Club @KF4OJ
Email: PA3FDQ@AMSAT.ORG
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