DFW Daylight Savings Time Transition and ATSC

Fall 2025

Daylight savings time ends on 2 November which means that stations should begin sending PSIP data to that effect on 3 October. The details on how this process should be managed are in ATSC A/65, Annex A and FCC regulations require that all except low power stations follow the standard. But they have a poor record of following the standard.

2 October

As usual, a few stations start a day early. Confusing any receiver that uses this data since the data doesn't specify the month. Just the day.

KFWD (RF 9)

KAZD (RF 31)

In a surprise move, KBOP made an attempt to end its worst in show status. Missing by a bit. Time error went from 1.2E9 seconds to a closer but still not very close 18,000 seconds slow. Also changing their GPS to UTC offset from 15 to the correct 18 and setting the DS_status flag. So will they add the DS_day and time values tomorrow?

3 October

As has been pretty standard, one station decided that doing it late in the day, but still too early, was the way to go. 9PM on the second is still wrong.

KDTX (RF 21)

4AM today was popular. Just a few with more to follow.

KHFD (RF 13)

KXAS (RF 24)

KDFI (RF 27)

KDTN (RF 29)

KUVN (RF 33)

KDFW (RF 35)

KXTX (RF 36)

4 October

WFAA (RF 8)

KERA (RF 14)

KTXD (RF 23)

KPXD (RF 25)

KFAA (RF 30)

Better late than early. Late doesn't matter a lot until it gets a lot closer to the day of the change. When it could effect the display of schedule data. Much less of a problem these days. Once upon a time one station did provide a full week of data, now best case is 48 hours. Much more typical is the required minimum of 12 hours.

On another note, while KBOP dropped 18,000 seconds from their error, getting closer, they didn't add the DST data. Maybe later.

26 October

The HDHR receiver I use to capture this data stopped working. Suspecting thatit was yet another case of a failed SMPS, I bought a replacement. That revived the HDHR. I think the only action I missed was KTVT (RF19) finally adding the DST data. Sister station KTXA (RF18) didn't.

1 November

One more station decided to add the DST change information yesterday. Very late.

KBOP-LD (RF 20)

I guess it doesn't matter too much as they have never bothered with schedule data.

Then they decide to enter standard time at about 9PM. They weren't alone:

KBOP-LD (RF 20)

KDTX (RF 21)

2 November

I didn't notice this last night but KDTX didn't enter DST at 9PM. They dropped the day/hour data then but didn't clear the DST flag until this morning. As a reminder, the way that is supposed to work is that after the entire broadcast area has slipped past the change, you clear DS_status and drop the day/hour. That would have been 2AM DST since DFW is nowhere near a time zone boundary.

KDTX (RF 21)

A detail missed by many as they did this after 2AM (DST). A very few did it at 2AM: KTXD, KPXD, KFAA, KAZD, WFAA, and KFWD. For the rest that bothered, 4AM was very popular.

KERA (PBS) switched over at 1AM (DST). Too soon.

KERA (RF 14)

KHFD waited till very late:

KHFD (RF 13)

KHPK did their usual not having a clue shift the time by 3600 seconds while leaving the DST info alone.

KHPK (RF 10)

KTXA and KDAF gave the whole DST change thing a miss. No hour/day data and they haven't cleared the DS_status flag.

26 November

KDAF finally entered standard time today.

KDAF (RF 32)

History

Since I no longer have the space limitataions with my Earthlink pages I can make data from previous transitions available here rather than rely on the Internet Archive.

ATSC Monitoring

Home