GMT 2 Setting Time Preference

[rodneygt3]

I went into my AD yesterday just to send him a reminder that I am still interested in the Daytona C. He politely acknowledged I am on the list.

In the meantime I figured I travel a lot so what about the BNLR thanks to all you TRF folks posting beautiful pictures of your watch -- thanks a lot for being an enabler... Needless to say I ordered a BNLR. I am guessing that will not hurt my position on the list for the Daytona C.

My question is do you really set the watch to GMT time, e.g Live in CT/NYC (-5) 6pm and set GMT arrow to 23? 2nd Part would be if traveling to Chicago (-6) just use the dial which will now indicate 3 times: London, NYC, and Chicago. Or forget about GMT time and just make one time 6pm and the other equivalent to 5pm. Just trying to gauge how people use the watch. I mainly travel in the US and it would be nice to glance at my watch and see the local time and my home time.

[douglasf13]

With my Explorer II, I set the GMT arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever I am locally.

[TheVTCGuy]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

with my explorer ii, i set the gmt arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever i am locally.

x 2

[Shakey]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

With my Explorer II, I set the GMT arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever I am locally.

x3. There are a few different way to do it, and there is no "right" way, but this works for me.

This link has a tutorial on the "24-hour hand is home time, hour hand for local time" method.

[dualcarb]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

With my Explorer II, I set the GMT arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever I am locally.

X4

Much easier for me to see the local time and a quick reference to what time it is at home so I know when to call my wife and kids

[Rockrolex]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

With my Explorer II, I set the GMT arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever I am locally.

I do the same with my Y-series all black GMT-II.

[slowturbo]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

With my Explorer II, I set the GMT arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever I am locally.

This is exactly what I do

[Old Geezer]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

With my Explorer II, I set the GMT arrow to 24hr time of my home, and then just set the hour hand to wherever I am locally.

X5. This works for me too.

[murph145]

I dont travel so I never actually use my GMT feature

[Tools]

Originally Posted by rodneygt3

. . .
My question is do you really set the watch to GMT time, e.g Live in CT/NYC (-5) 6pm and set GMT arrow to 23? . . .

No, GMT is just the name of the watch, not what you have to set it to.

It is most useful for many of us to have the 24 hr hand set to local time and to jump the hour hand when travelling. Of course, you can rotate the bezel to see any other zone as it relates to your local time zone.

[mtgjr]

Originally Posted by Tools

It is most useful for many of us to have the 24 hr hand set to local time and to jump the hour hand when travelling. Of course, you can rotate the bezel to see any other zone as it relates to your local time zone.

I think you meant that most set the 24 hour (GMT) hand to their home time, and jump the hour hand to local time when traveling.

[scombs263]

I too use the 24 hour clock on my time zone.

[Valkyrie]

You should set the watch in whatever fashion you find to be most useful. For me, I have found that I depend on the regular hour hand to indicate local time just like any other watch. I also find that setting the 24 hour hand to local time is uselessly redundant since I never refer to the 24 hour hand when I simply want to know what the local time is.

But since you have a rotating bezel the question really is what time zone do you want the 24 hour hand to indicate when the bezel index is at the 12 O'clock position? I chose to set it to GMT so that it is an easy matter to rotate the bezel forward or backwards to any time zone of interest (or even quicker add or subtract the appropriate hours without bothering to rotate the bezel). This way you always know where the starting point is for GMT and can easily rotate the bezel as needed for any time zone.

[amg55]

When I travel, I set it to home time. When I'm at home I set it to Paris time (my favorite city, after Sydney).

[rollee1]

My GMT hand is always on UTC.
I memorized all the common world city time zones, a quick mental is simple for me.

[Quailhunter]

I just got back from a week in Scotland and carried my GMT. Hands set on local time and 24 hour hand set on home time. Worked great, especially the blue/black bezel reminding me if it was day or night at home. I can easily do the math in my head, but the GMT added a degree of fun to the trip.

[beshannon]

I have mine set to GMT as I need to track military time for my job

[GMT Aviator]

I have mine set to GMT for two reasons.

GMT is the time reference used by everyone in my line of work wherever I am in the world, so I need it.

Secondly, I live a few hundred yards off the prime meridian itself, so I know when dinner is ready when I read the GMT hand.

If I lived in another part of the world and i didn't work anymore, then I'd set the GMT hand to my local time and use the quickset feature of the hour hand to set local time when I change time zones.

[T. Ferguson]

The way I use the watch is to have the 24 hour hand in synch with the 12 hour hand - both set to my home time. The reason for this is two-fold. First, when I travel, the other time I will be most interested in tracking is still going to be my home time so when I land wherever I'm going it is a simple matter of jumping the 12 hour hand to the local time and the 24 hour hand is still tracking home time. Secondly, I'm most familiar with other time zones as they relate to my home time, not to some other arbitrary standard such as UTC (GMT).

There are people that like to say the watch was meant to be set to UTC but this is simple not true. For the first 30 or so years the watch has existed as the GMT Master the two hour hands could not be set independently. So the 24 hour hand always read the same time as the 12 hour hand when the pip was at 12 'clock. Would be pretty silly to have to turn the bezel when in your home time zone just to tell the time...off the 24 hour hand.

[Speed]

Ahhhh this thread. This question...

This question ha been the topic of some fierce battles.

I recall a few years ago our Mod extraordinaire -Tools / Larry -getting into it with a member who was a former pilot. Things got down to the bits of when certain aviation manuals were published and standards set - relative to the intro of the first GMT Master watch itself.

Bottom line - for me and my 16710 - unless you have a keen need to know GMT time, as a travel watch, it seems to make sense to set the 24 hour hand to local time and adjust the hour hand as necessary when going from zone to zone.

Now (and it always happens) I'm waiting for someone to bring up the fact that in India and a few other places...time zones vary by 30 minute increments... I suggest an Apple Watch in these cases

In the end, it's your watch. Do what you will.

[mtgjr]

Originally Posted by Speed

Bottom line - for me and my 16710 - unless you have a keen need to know GMT time, as a travel watch, it seems to make sense to set the 24 hour hand to local time and adjust the hour hand as necessary when going from zone to zone.

Don't you mean set the 24 hour hand to home time, and adjust the hour hand as necessary to local time when going from time zone to time zone?

[Speed]

Originally Posted by mtgjr

Don't you mean set the 24 hour hand to home time, and adjust the hour hand as necessary to local time when going from time zone to time zone?

Yes!

Sorry.

Thanks for the correction - 24 hour hand set to HOME time!!!

[exador]

Originally Posted by Speed

Now (and it always happens) I'm waiting for someone to bring up the fact that in India and a few other places...time zones vary by 30 minute increments... I suggest an Apple Watch in these cases

Here in OZ it's even more difficult:

Australian Western Standard Time (AWST) UTC+8:45

[amg55]

Originally Posted by exador

Here in OZ it's even more difficult:

Australian Western Standard Time (AWST) UTC+8:45

Are you sure mate? It's only +8, isn't it?

[exador]

Originally Posted by amg55

Are you sure mate? It's only +8, isn't it?

OK slight correction. Apparently only applies to Eucla:

UTC+8:45: Australian Central Western Standard Time (ACWST)

[destroxxiv]

GMT hand to GMT+1, since I deal with people there on a daily basis. Hour hand to local time. When I travel, I adjust the bezel so that GMT hand is set to home.

[rodneygt3]

Wow, that is a lot of feedback! All good points. I like the idea of setting the GMT time to my local time, e.g 6pm and 18 GMT. This will be good practice for 24 hour time. When I travel in the US I can set the regular time -1 to -3 hours depending on there I am located. Maybe if I am adventurous I will use the true London GMT just to see what it is like. Of course, the iphone has a world clock.

[Meme-Dweller]

Makes me wonder if any of you actually use the GMT's bezel instead of the hour and GMT hands. I see now why Rolex made the fixed Exp2 bezel... you OCD folks can't stand to have the bezel look crooked >.<

[WestCoastKMC]

I set the 24 hour hand to UTC, since all time zones are referenced to that. My local time is the main hour hand which is easy to adjust with one-hour increments. When I want to know the time zone of another area, I simply rotate the bezel to the time relative to UTZ Zulu time.

For those that put the home time with the 24-hr hand, do you ever actually rotate the bezel? If so, why? It seems to me that it would be far easier to find another time zone's UTC reference than having to keep track of time zones relative to "home."


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[T. Ferguson]

Originally Posted by WestCoastKMC

I set the 24 hour hand to UTC, since all time zones are referenced to that. My local time is the main hour hand which is easy to adjust with one-hour increments. When I want to know the time zone of another area, I simply rotate the bezel to the time relative to UTZ Zulu time.

For those that put the home time with the 24-hr hand, do you ever actually rotate the bezel? If so, why? It seems to me that it would be far easier to find another time zone's UTC reference than having to keep track of time zones relative to "home."

My 24 hour hand is set to my home time. I use the bezel regularly. When I'm in my home time zone and I want to track a 2nd one, I rotate the bezel. When I'm traveling and my dial is set to local time I rotate the bezel when I want to track any other time zones in addition to home time.

As I said previously, there are two reasons my 24 hour hand is set to home time. When traveling away from home to another time zone, it is the quickest way to use the watch. Jump the hour hand to local time and done - the 24 hour hand is already telling me the primary 2nd time I want to track - home time. Secondly, I'm already familiar with the offsets to most places around the world as they relate to my home time. I know the time difference from where I live to, Tokyo, Hawaii, Chicago and New York for example. I do not know how these place relate to UTC. Sure, with some study I could memorize an entirely new set of offsets around the world to UTC but I already know most of these against my home time, so why not use that instead?

Right now I have a good friend in Michigan and I'm tracking the time there so I know when to call her. I know she's three hours ahead of me so as soon as I dropped her off at the airport I turned the bezel to three hours ahead. I have no clue how the time in Lansing relates to Greenwich Mean Time.

UTC really has very little significance to me. Now, if I lived in Europe, closer to it and was more in tune to how it relates to other time zones, maybe I'd use it. But that's not my case.