convert timezone

[rbailer]

I have been searching the web for a little while on how to effectively convert timezones on a datetime stamp. My server is out in California and I live on the east coast, so i need to add 3 hours to the time. Here is the code i have right now to get the west coast time. How do i make this code convert the time to eastcoast.

$date = date ("F j, Y h:m a", strtotime ($elist->date));

[bokeh]

$date = date("F j, Y h:m a", (strtotime($elist->date)+(3600 * $num_hours)));