date time group (DTG)

Date/Time Group (DTG) is a data format for specifying the date and time used by NATO. The data format consists of five data fields for the day, time, time zone, month and year.

The individual data fields contain digits or letters. Thus, the data field for the day consists of two digits, the following one for the time, consisting of hours and minutes, consists of four digits, e.g. 1428, which stands for 14 o' clock and 28 minutes. This is followed by the data field for the time zone with one letter and for the month with first three letters month name in English. After that, the three letters mar stand for the month March. The five data fields are completed by the two- digit, numerical indication of the year.

The complete DTG data for the time zone Germany (A) for March 7, 2019, 2:28 p.m., looks like this: 071428Amar19. The DTG data is usually placed in the header of the message. It can also be used as a message identifier if it is unique for each message