In communications messages, a date-time group (DTG) is a set of characters, usually in a prescribed format, used to express the year, the month, the day of the month, the hour of the day, the minute of the hour, and the
time zone
A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...
, if different from
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently use ...
(UTC). The order in which these elements are presented may vary. The DTG is usually placed in the
header of the message. One example is " (UTC)"; while another example is "".
The DTG may indicate either the
date
Date or dates may refer to:
*Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'')
Social activity
*Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner
** Group dating
*Play date, a ...
and time a message was dispatched by a transmitting station or the date and time it was handed into a
transmission facility by a
user or originator for dispatch.
The DTG may be used as a message
identifier if it is unique for each message.
Military Date Time Group
A form of DTG is used in the
US Military
The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six Military branch, service branches: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States N ...
's
message traffic (a form of
Automated Message Handling System The Automated Message Handling System (AMHS) is an automated message handling system that can be used to process, store, and disseminate legacy AUTODIN messages as well as Defense Message System (DMS) messages. The term "Automated Message Handling ...
). In US military messages and communications (e.g., on maps showing troop movements) the format is ''DD HHMM (SS)'' Z'' MON YY''. Although occasionally seen with spaces, it can also be written as a single string of characters. Three different formats can be found:
* - Full time (used for software timestamps)
* - shortened time (used e.g. for timestamps manually written)
* - short time (e.g. used for planning)
references the military identifier of time zone:
*
UTC-12: Y (e.g., Fiji)
*
UTC-11: X (American Samoa)
*
UTC-10: W (Honolulu, HI)
*
UTC-9: V (Juneau, AK)
*
UTC-8: U (
PST, Los Angeles, CA)
*
UTC-7: T (
MST
The Master of Studies or Master in Studies (M.St. or MSt; ) is a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, University of Dublin and the University of Ne ...
, Denver, CO)
*
UTC-6: S (
CST, Dallas, TX)
*
UTC-5: R (
EST, New York, NY)
*
UTC-4: Q (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
*
UTC-3: P (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
*
UTC-2: O (Godthab, Greenland)
*
UTC-1: N (Azores)
*
UTC+-0: Z (
Zulu time
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently use ...
)
*
UTC+1: A (France)
*
UTC+2: B (Athens, Greece)
*
UTC+3: C (Arab Standard Time, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar)
*
UTC+4: D (Used for Moscow, Russia, and Afghanistan, however, Afghanistan is technically +4:30 from UTC)
*
UTC+5: E (Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan)
*
UTC+6: F (Bangladesh)
*
UTC+7: G (Thailand)
*
UTC+8: H (Beijing, China)
*
UTC+9: I (Tokyo, Japan)
*
UTC+10: K (Brisbane, Australia)
*
UTC+11: L (Sydney, Australia)
*
UTC+12: M (Wellington, New Zealand)
Examples
Example 1: represents the 5th day of the current month 11:00 (UTC).
Example 2: represents 09th July 2011 4:30 pm (MST).
Example 3: represents the current time of refresh: (UTC).
“Zulu time” does not mean “local time” unless a Zulu time zone is specified. Earth rotates in 24 hours, thus there are 24 hours in a day. The English alphabet has 26 letters; J is local time, and the other 25 letters are assigned to the 25 time zones. The International Date Line separates time zones M and Y. Zulu
is a synonym for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC); and formerly a synonym for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
[Egeland PhD, Dr Knut Normann, et al (2021: p. 3). “Military Date Time Group - MIL DTG DDHHMMSSZmmmYY”, archived in Military Academy, private Knights University (Ko’G).]
Sources
MIL-STD-2500A 12 October 1994
See also
*
Calendar date
*
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. It is maintained by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was first published in 1988, w ...
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References
*TM 20-205, the Dictionary of United States Army Terms (1944)
*ACP 121(I) p 3–7
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Date-Time Group
Calendars