Mel,

Thanks for that explanation. I've been watching the US Masters on TV so it's just coming up to midnight here in the UK, so will look at your suggestion tomorrow after work.

If your Alarm time is stored in the PIC (say your morning alarm at 07 Hours and 15 Minutes) it's a simple matter to compare if those two variables (say ALARMHour and ALARMMinute) match what you've read from the RTC (after converting from BCD).
Which is basically what I'm after. I intend to have an ALARMHour1 and ALARMHour2 to set an on time and off time to monitor.

Thanks once again for the push to try and understand these data sheets. It's somewhat clearer now