How to resolve a TzUtil DST bug and new DST settings for 2008 for MonTel and TzUtil 2.11.x in Australia

This item will be superseded by MonTel version 2.12.1 If you are using TZUtil only then please download and use version 2.12.1 or later.

Topic written: 2008-03-16

Version 2.11.x and earlier of MonTel used specific dates in a year to calculate the start and end of the Day light Savings Time (DST). If the settings were not changed from year to year, it tried to guess the correct date in the year, and had generally got it right. Well that is, up to this year in Australia.

Daylight savings was due to end on the last Sunday in March, TzUtil and MonTel mistook the date from 2007 as the 4th Sunday in March, rather than the last Sunday in March, consequently, if left unchanged TzUtil will end daylight savings on March 23, rather than the correct date of March 30. For all States using DST apart from Western Australia, events have overtaken this Bug, because DST will now end on the first Sunday in April. (See http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/dst_times.shtml).

For all states other than Western Australia using DST the new settings because of the DST change are:

TimeZone]

CapitalCity = "Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart"

TimeZoneName = "MonTel Adjusted"

TZStandardName = "(AUS) Eastern Standard Time"

TZDaylightName = "(AUS) Eastern Daylight Time"

TZStandardGMTModifyMins = -600

TZDaylightStartDateTime = "02:00:00 05/10/08"

TZDaylightEndDateTime = "03:00:00 06/04/08"

TZDaylightSTDModifyMins = -60

For Western Australia the new settings (just to correct the bug) are:

[TimeZone]

CapitalCity = "Perth"

TimeZoneName = "WA DST Trial 2006-2008"

TZStandardName = "(AUS) Western Standard Time"

TZDaylightName = "(AUS) Western Daylight Time"

TZStandardGMTModifyMins = -480

TZDaylightStartDateTime = "02:00:00 26/10/08"

TZDaylightEndDateTime = "03:00:00 30/03/08"

TZDaylightSTDModifyMins = -60

There will be a new method of recording the DST start and end, based on "Xth Day in Month at", called the "Day In Month" method, that will be used in Version 2.12.1 of MonTel which will be automatically modified, and in the TzUtil which is available now.