It's 17 o'clock somewhere -- I just wish that wasn't here

February 3, 2011 6:07 PM

My alarm clock/iPod dock has decided to display 24-hour time, and I'm really much more at home in the 12-hour format. (I may have desperately hit a lot of buttons when it was beeping...)

It's a Sony ICF-C1IP, and it's not even supposed to have the option of displaying 24-hour time. It's worked just fine for the last couple of years with the 12-hour format and AM/PM icons.

However, during a power outage yesterday (thank you, snow removal crew!) it started beeping uncontrollably to indicate it was running on its backup battery. In an effort to silence it, I hit just about every button/combination of buttons available -- and when the power came back on, it was 20 o'clock. Clearly I've activated some hidden feature that neither the manual nor a reasonable amount of googling have told me how to disable.

I understand that there are arguments in favor of 24-hour clocks, but this current situation is unacceptable to me. Does anyone have any idea how to get me back into the AM/PM world?

posted by cranberry_nut to technology (4 answers total)

You might want to try to 'reset' the clock (follow instructions right side of this instruction sheet) and see if that does anything?

Meanwhile, I'm still out here searching on.....
posted by dancestoblue at 6:31 PM on February 3, 2011

User manual insert here, if that helps. There's some stuff on the second page about time zone and clock settings.
posted by axiom at 6:42 PM on February 3, 2011

Apparently this item is sold in New Zealand as a 24 hour clock...

And you're not the only one who has had this trouble, though in my searching I've only found one other, and no one has answered their query -- sorry...

The only other documentation I've been able to find is the same insert linked to by axiom...
posted by dancestoblue at 6:47 PM on February 3, 2011

Thanks, dancestoblue. Several resets later it seems to agree that it was misbehaving.
posted by cranberry_nut at 1:22 PM on February 6, 2011