Talk:16-line message format

Sample Messages

Here are some sample messages I wrote. RI=Routing indicator PLAD=Plain language address.
ACP 126

VZCZC051 UU
CALLED_CALLSIGN DE CALLING_CALLSIGN NR 051
TRANSMISSION INSTRUSTIONS/OP. SIGS
R 221855Z APR 2015
FM ORIGINATION PLAIN LANGUAGE ADDRESS
TO TO ADDRESSEE RI AND PLAD
INFO INFORMATION ADDRESSEE 1 RI AND PLAD
INFORMATION ADDRESSEE 2 RI AND PLAD
BT
UNCLAS
THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE.
BT
NNNN

ACP 127

VZCZC051 UU
RR CALLED_CALLSIGN
DE CALLING_CALLSIGN 0051 22/1856Z
ZNR UUUUU TRANSMISSION INSTRUSTIONS/OP. SIGS
R 221856Z APR 2015
FM ORIGINATION PLAIN LANGUAGE ADDRESS
TO TO ADDRESSEE RI AND PLAD
INFO INFORMATION ADDRESSEE 1 RI AND PLAD
INFORMATION ADDRESSEE 2 RI AND PLAD
BT
UNCLAS
THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE.
BT
NNNN

ACP 127 Supl.

VZCZC051
RR CALLED_CALLSIGN
DE CALLING_CALLSIGN #0051 1121857
ZNR UUUUU TRANSMISSION INSTRUSTIONS/OP. SIGS
R 221857Z APR 2015
FM ORIGINATION PLAIN LANGUAGE ADDRESS
TO TO ADDRESSEE RI AND PLAD
INFO INFORMATION ADDRESSEE 1 RI AND PLAD
INFORMATION ADDRESSEE 2 RI AND PLAD
BT
UNCLAS
THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE.
BT
#0051
NNNN

These are correct as used on US Army circuits. Jbh (talk) 18:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Notes

Line 5 in the initial example should read R 151412Z MAR 2015. Prior to Y2K this was often in the format of YY instead of YYYY. Not sure of a source for that, it should be in the change log of one of the standards or operations documents listed. Jbh^Talk 01:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

All 16 line definitions

Here are the message line definitions I pulled from the DOS reference I mentioned on my talk page. Line 10, group count, is not from the reference but is documented elsewhere.

1. Transmission Identifier
2. Addressees
3. Originator
4. Security Warning and Op. Signals
5. Date-Time-Group (DTG)
6. Originating Station Plain Language Address Designator (PLAD)
7. Action Addressee PLAD
8. INFO Addressee PLAD
9. XMT Addressee Exemptions
10. Group Count
11. BT
12. TEXT - Clasification, Tags, REF line, Subject line and Body of message
13. BT
14. Confirmation line
15. End of Message Validation Number
16. NNNN - End of Message

Line 12 is where much inter-agency/inter-service variation occurs. I never realized a lot of the formatting I am used to is not actually part of the standard but is just variant line 12 formatting. Learn something every day! Cheers. Jbh^Talk 01:24, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Would something like this help you make sense of the DOS material?

@PetesGuide: I tried extracting material from the DOS publication based on what I know. If a 'translation' like I have done below would be of help to you please let me know and I will work through all of the lines of the format in the same way I started or if you have particular lines which are an issue I can just do them.

Format lines 1 through 10 specify the header of an ACP-127 standard message. These lines consist of both printing and non-printing characters that provide information both to human operators and automated message terminals (AMT).

• Line 1 Is the Transmission Identifier it provides Start-of-Message (SOM) information to the AMT consisting of two characters followed bt five spaces, two carrage returns and a line feed. Following this is infromation visible to the operator consisting of a single letter Start-of-Transmision (SOT) indicator and a four character Start-of-Message (SOM) indicator. These letters stay the same for all transmissions. Following the SOM is an alphabetic trigraph followed by three digits. These can vary from message to message as defined by the agency operating the communications system. Often these are used to identify the transmissin channel and message number.

  A properly formatted Line 1 would look like this: VZCZCAAA123

• Line 2 Consists of a digraph indicating message presidence followed by a space and then the routing indicator or call sign of either the next relay station or the final addressee. There are typically four levels of precidence. From lowest to highest they are

1. Routine indicated by RR
2. Priority indicated by PP
3. Immediate sometimes referred to as Operational Immediate is indicated by OO
4. Flash indicated by ZZ

A properly formatted Line 2 for a routine message would look like this: RR BA9HQM

• Line 3 ...
  

Jbh^Talk 23:42, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

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