Road Trip 2009: What time is it, anyway?

MISSOULA, Mont.--There were two points Sunday when I had absolutely no idea what time it was. It wasn't that I didn't have any timepieces. Rather, I had several, and they were all telling me different things.

The first time it happened, I was on my way up to the top of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area in western Idaho at 7,400 feet above sea level, as part of Road Trip 2009. From high up there, it is possible to see four states: Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Down below, in Riggins, Idaho, where I'd started my day, it was Mountain time, and, I was pretty sure, about 11:15 a.m. Off to the west, and to the north, it was Pacific time, or about 10:15 a.m. Yet, both iPhones I had in the car, as well as a dedicated Garmin GPS device, read 12:15 p.m. Which it would have been if I'd been in the Central time zone.

Utterly confused, but determined to believe the middle result, the Mountain time zone clock reading, I went on with my day. And indeed, before long, I saw that the iPhones--I didn't check the GPS device--had reverted to the proper time.

Driving around parts of Idaho and Montana on Sunday, CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman found both his iPhone and a dedicated GPS receiver confused by what time it was. Why did that happen?

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

But hours later, not long after crossing the border into Montana and re-entering the Mountain time zone--parts of north-central Idaho are in the Pacific time zone--I glanced at the two iPhones and once again, they were reading a time that just had to be in the Central time zone.

At least I hoped so, as I really didn't want it to be that late. So, just to be sure, I checked one of those bank time displays you always pass on the road, and sure enough, I was right. It wasn't as late as the iPhones were saying it was. They were once again displaying a time that would be in the Central time zone.

So what happened? Do you have any idea why three different pieces of digital equipment--the two iPhones and my GPS device--were giving me the time from hundreds of miles to the east? I could accept it when I was on top of the world, at 7,400 feet and climbing. But later, I was down in the flats, and the devices were doing the same thing.

Any ideas? I'd love to hear them.

Geek Gestalt is on the tail end of Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'm now writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

[npgh2o]

My Garmin "eTrex Legend" GPS needs to be 'told' what time zone it's in. In its setup screen you pick an offset from UTC. It's an old model but it does have built-in maps, so it does know where in the world it 'is'.

Your iPhone may get its 'time' from a local cellphone tower. My original iPhone (no 3G, no GPS) had issues with an area in Park County west of Colorado Springs. It was always an hour off and I claimed it was because it wasn't an AT&T signal out there. I don't know who provides the GSM coverage out there, maybe not T-Mobile either. I think it 'got better' this year. I have a 3GS now but haven't checked the time-of-day on it out there yet. I expect the iPhone 3GS gets its time from the cellphone system, too. If/when you reach eastern Washington state the demarcation isn't along the state border but it goes around some towns -- I haven't looked for the precise line there.

...Neil

[xtrmtrk]

For the iPhone - I believe that ATT owns very little of the cellular infrastructure in Idaho and Montana. I travel from Seattle to Missoula monthly and as soon as I hit the Idaho border the phone gets very confused about Daylight Savings Time (and is thus off an hour as you observed). This happened to me regardless of the phone brand, and when I had an account with both T-Mobile and ATT. If you put the iPhone in diagnostic information mode and look up all the carrier/tower codes etc, you'll see that ATT is nowhere to be found. I think the local service owners just don't keep on top of Daylight Savings Time changes.

As for your GPS, that's a bit more interesting question. For a website project I worked on a while back I had to map any Latitude/Longitude to a time zone. This appears to be much more difficult than it might sound. There are timezone "shape" databases available from various US and international government agencies and private sources but they all differ slightly and aren't simple to use. I can see it being extremely easy for your Garmin to hit an edge case or even mistake in this dataset.

There's a webservice to map coordinates to a timezone at http://www.earthtools.org/webservices.htm. It would be interesting to punch in the questionable coordinates and see what it thinks.

[Aanon]

Did you check the maps? Where did the iPhones and the Garmin assume you were located?
Furthermore: Do Apple (i.e. Google) and Garmin get their map data from the same, erroneous, source?

[ndpg]

I've seen the same thing happen in and around Mammoth Lakes in CA. It affects any AT&T phone and results in a 2 hour shift. The ski resort there means that there can be a lot of people using cell phones in the middle of an area that is otherwise sparsely populated. My guess is that during times of heavy traffic data has to be carried via some unusual routing (via satellite even?) and maybe the cell towers suddenly find themselves attached to a network a couple of times zones further east.

[l.angier]

It's the twilight zone, I'm telling you!

It's happened for years on my AT&T phone, especially in north central and north eastern Nevada. Always gives me Central Time and I don't know why...

[dadsgravy]

Because you were in two of the three states that no one cares about.

[laselva99]

Save yourself the trouble and hassle, and wear a wrist watch when you travel. It's on your packing list in your iPhone.

[dbarn0814]

Most rural Tier 3 cellular companies doesn't have their own Mobile Switching Center (MSC), they're connected to a remote MSC which could belong to a different company than theirs thus they dont exercise control on most configurations. Basically, when you travel you got a constant Location update. What happened was when a location update was done on your phone, the Location Area Code (LAC) of the serving cellsite (BTS or Node-B) that picked up your cell signal was still tied up to CST on the MSC, explaining the incorrect time on your User Equipment. If ATT says they're not able to correct that most likely, your cellsite is clusted with other cellsites on different timezones and would be more expensive for them to add BSCs/RNCs to correct the problem. Hope this helps.

[ssteve1]

My wife and I are visiting her sister in Missoula. We've been in Gardiner, MT and Yellowstone the past few days. We weren't using the phones because there was no cell service or Wi-Fi where we were staying. This morning both of our phones (3GS running 3.0.1) were an hour fast. They thought they were in Central time zone. We drove back to Missoula today where we have Wi-Fi at my sister-in-law's. Now my phone is in the right time zone but my wife's still thinks it's in Central. Maps on both phones knows exactly where we are. Rebooted both phones and no change.