[HCDX]: International standards on Time - and Log Formats

["Greg Baker" <bakergsj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would prefer to have all time read in HHMM format, with a one-character
readout for the time zone.  Similarly, I also think dates should be in
YYMMDD format, which is neither the American nor European manner, but makes
a lot of sense when you're sorting files.

I don't CARE if it's called UTC or TUC, or Fred Standard Time, as long as we
all understand about of what we talk.  "Z" is the standard abbreviation in
NATO date-time group parlance for GMT.

I'm working on a series of COBOL programs to report loggings.  COBOL works
best with fixed-width fields, so abbreviations would be useful.  Here's what
I have in mind so far:

FREQUENCY    format  6 characters, 99999v9 - V being assumed decimal point:
enter 6135 as
061350, or even 61350 and assume the leading zero.  (I don't want to use
even KHz or MHz because some folks identify transmitters by how far they are
off-freq.)

KiloHertz or MegaHertz - one character, values K, M, or G if you get sticky.

DATE-TIME format CCYYMMDD

TIME START - HHMn - it makes it easy as a sort key

TIME END - HHMn

ZONE - One character, Z for GMT, R for EST, A for CET, etc.  That way the
software can convert the time to UTC.

STATION: 25 characters - too short or too long?

LANGUAGE: 3 characters: ENG, FRA, ESP, DEU, RUS, ABC, CHN, PTG, VER for
vernacular, UNK for unknown.

SINPO: 5 characters, alphanumeric.  SIO would be 5X5X5.  RST as R599X

MODE: three characters; RTTY entered as RTY

TYPE OF PROGRAM:  2 alphanumeric characters.
Proposed values to enter after a menu choice:

NX - news
WX - weather report
MX - music
DX - our favorite type of program
SX - sports
RX - religious program

PROGRAM-NOTES: 25 characters alphanumeric

LOGGER: 8 characters

I hope to have the first program written tomorrow.

Greg Baker
COBOL Dinosaur
Laurel, MD
/* resumes upon request */


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