Originally Posted by HokieTraveler
Okay so I like many others arrived to find my hilton alarm clock was 12 hours off. Annoyed at the prospects of having to call maintainence I went to work on figuring out how to change the time on the clocks myself. After reading the posts in this message thread and doing a little tinkering myself I finally figured out how to set the time on these darn clocks. In order to change the time you will need to remove the top cover of the alarm clock. This is the cover where the 5 preset radio station buttons are. In order to do this you will need to remove the phillips head screw located just below the top cover in the back of the clock (center top). I used a key on my key chain and it came out pretty easily. From there just pry off the top with your hands from the back, the front has two little clips that snap in and hold it on. Once you have this top off you will see some hidden buttons along the back edge of the clock. The left most button is labeled time. Just press this button and the clock time will begin flashing. Use the alarm clock time buttons to set the time. Note the PM light located at the top left of the display should be lit if you are setting the clock to a PM hour. Just press the enter button (button 3) when done or touch nothing for about 5 seconds. You will hear a beep and the clock time is now set. That's it. Stupid design....
Note: There are two other hidden buttons under this cover but I haven't had time yet to figure out what they do.
OK, so I am at the Hilton Singer Island right now, and my clock was 5 minutes fast. I always carry my own self setting alarm clock (best XMas present ever) so it's not a big deal for waking up. However, the Hilton clock has the ability to have the backlight on always which allows me to see the time if I wake up in the middle of the night (not possible or wanted on my battery powered travel clock). The procedure above works great, with a couple of additions. To the left of the "Time" button, there is a slide switch. You need to slide it so that the unlocked icon shows up on the screen (looks like an open lock). That will allow you to set the time by following the above procedure. You should probably set the slider back to the locked position afterwards. Why the slider is there, I have no idea. Maybe unlocking also unlocks the ability to reset the presets? If not, why have a locking switch in a hidden panel that no one "should" be able to get to?
The other two buttons are labeled "Calen" for calendar and "Zone" for setting you time zone. I didn't play around with the too much, but the calendar setting is two settings, the year and a date. The zone came up as "Eas" for me for eastern. I assume (although did not confirm) that you could set any timezone and will probably have the choice to turn on and off DST applicability for each of those zones for areas that don't follow DST (like part of Indiana and Arizona).