Setting Multi-Zone Radio Clocks

The Problem

I have 4, perhaps more, radios that have a capability to display both local time and UTC. They are: Eton Elite Executive, Qodosen DX-286/SR-286 and Sangean ATS-909. I don’t understand the setting process fully, and the manual didn’t help.

Let me say at the outset that the User Manual clearly shows how to initially set up the Qodosen SR-286/DX-286 radios. And if it isn’t clear enough, I wrote up the steps in my own words. That works; what I haven’t figured out is how to adjust the time without repeating the same rather lengthy procedure.

I remember back when I got my Eton Elite Executive, I couldn’t figure the time zone out. I just set the clock for whatever it displayed and stayed on UTC. Now with my latest acquisition, the Sangean ATS-909, it’s the same problem. I read the manual. I consulted an AI. When nothing worked I said “enough!” I am going to figure this out on my own.

The 3 types of radios are presented in the order of their introduction into the marketplace, perhaps to show some hints of evolution.

Sangean ATS-909

My best explanation at this time is that the ATS-909 manual (page 5 and 6) makes some assumptions about how your radio is set up when it arrives new, assumptions that were not valid for my used model. The procedures below let you start from scratch and make no assumptions.

There are 4 modes related to the clock. One switches between modes using the World/Home button and the Enter key. When flashing, press Enter to exit the setting mode.

The mode can be identified looking at the display:

• WORLD – World Time shown
• WORLD Flashing – World Time zone setting mode
• HOME – Home Time shown
• HOME Flashing – Home Time zone setting mode

Follow these steps:

Establish the time zones

1. Repeatedly press the WORLD/HOME button until the display shows WORLD flashing. When this happens a city name may or may not appear on the display.
2. If a city name appears, rotate the tuning knob until becomes blank.
3. Press ENTER. At this point you may be able to follow the instructions in the manual, or just continue following…
4. Repeatedly press the WORLD/HOME button until the display shows HOME flashing. When this happens a city name will appear on the display.
5. Rotate the tuning knob until the display shows a city with your time zone.
6. Press ENTER.

Once this is done, it needn’t be repeated unless you travel to another time zone. Instead of UTC, you could set the WORLD time to your travel destination so you could see what time it was back home.

Set Daylight Savings Time

There is a Sun symbol (☀️) on the keyboard and on the display next to the time. Press the Sun button so that the displayed symbol is on if you are on Daylight Savings/Summer Time currently, or off if you aren’t. You will have to manually adjust this when DST changes.

Set the Clock

1. Repeatedly press the WORLD/HOME button until it displays WORLD, not flashing.
2. Press the Clock Set button
3. Key in the current UTC/GMT in 4-digit 24-hour format and press ENTER.

You’re all set.

Eton Elite Executive

The Eton Elite Executive also supports multiple time zones, and when I tried it a few years back, I got tangled up. For reference, here is the manual. The EEE has a very attractive and literate manual.

Unlike the Sangean ATS-909, the EEE has an explicit GMT time zone in addition to London. Other duplicates are Beijing/Hong Kong and Deli/Kashi. It also supports either 12-hour or 24-hour display format. Like all the radios being discussed her, the clock can be automatically set from an FM station through RDS. My experience is that station time data is often unreliable and I don’t use that feature.

The manual says first to set “your time zone” which is currently UTC-4 (EDT). There is no DST switch mentioned in the manual, so I’ll select Caracas (CCS) that’s UTC-4. Following the manual I accomplished this setting.

The next step is “SETTING THE CLOCK AND WEEKDAY” and those instructions allow setting local time, which is already correct and the day of week which is also correct on my radio.

There is no mention in the manual of any way to display UTC, except to change the time zone of the radio. If I change the radio to GMT, the time changes to 0544, which is totally wrong (it’s 21:44).

We could try it backwards from the manual — set GMT first and then switch to the local time zone. That actually seemed to work. So essentially after GMT is set, the user can pick some other time zone and display the time in that zone. Meh.

Qodosen SR-286/DX-286

As I said before, the SR-286/DX-286 setting procedure works. This radio, unlike the others, can display both local and UTC time on the display at the same time. Totally cool in my book.

The setting procedure is in the User Guide on pages 22 and 23. This manual, like the others, talks about setting the “world time,” which I think of as UTC. It starts, like the EEE, with a long press of the TZ button and a rotation of the knob to select a time zone. It has this curious note:

The first time you set the clock, you need to select the correct local time zone, so that you will not make a mistake when selecting UTC.

The manual is quite explicit on this first time setup, saying:

the first time you set the local clock, you need to follow the steps: Select the local time zone > Set the clock > Select World Time.

So I set it to CCS (UTC – 4) and set the local time 18:14. This setting works exactly as it does on the EEE, including the same key presses and the RDS Auto setting. At this point both local and world time show 18:14. Next I select “World Time,” which I presume is UTC and now “WORLD” time on the radio displays UTC and local time appears as well. All’s good.

The problem comes if the clock runs slow and a month later I need to set the clock forward a couple of minutes. How do I do that? Intuitively, I expect the “second time” to be simpler than the first time, and wouldn’t require reestablishing the local time zone. At the end of the first time procedure, the time zone is set to UTC. However, if I go into time setting mode and advance the time a couple of minutes, both the local time and the WORLD time become the same, and equal to the local time. I wasn’t able to come up with any combination of settings to adjust the time that did not involve the three steps.

Update:

I posted my query on the Qodosen DX-286 Facebook page and the company responded:

1. Adjust to the local time zone first
2. Set the clock and minute
3. Adjust the world time

So it’s what the manual says for “first time.”