Setting the time and date

It is important that the time is set correctly on the ABN (or more correctly, on the cellphone connected to the ABN) if the timed 'when' command is to function properly.

It is also important for the date to be set, since the logging feature requires a correct date.

Normally the time and date can simply be set on the phone handset, but this is not possible on the ABN-8+ and ABN-1+, since these units have an integral GSM module.

Where a Nokia 5110 (which does not have a facility for setting the date and does not have a calendar function) is connected to the ABN, the following commands will set the date correctly in the 5110. Thereafter, the 5110 does indeed maintain the calendar date correctly.

Setting the time

The format of the command to set the time is '#hh:mm'. So sending the ABN the message:

#17:15

will set the time on the phone (or integral phone module) to 5:15pm.

Setting both time and date

To set both the time and the date, the format is '#hh:mm dd/mm/yyyy'. So, sending the message:

#17:15 15/01/2005

will set the time to 5:15pm on 15 January 2005. Note that this format is inflexible. The hour, minutes, day and month must each be two digits. The year must be four digits. There must be colons, spaces and slashes in the positions shown in the examples above.

Checking if the date and time are correctly set

Sending the ABN a simple 'S' status command will cause it to send back a message which (among other things) will tell you what the date and time is currently set to. The 'S' command is dealt with in more detail in the "Technical Information" section.

Note that the 'S' command returns the year portion of the date as only two digits, whereas when setting the date, four digits must be specified for the year.