So why the GMT hand?

[Couchpotato]

This is the first GMT watch I’ve ever had. I’ve been playing with it since I got it, and noticed some of the stuff that I missed previously. For example, the blue color on batman’s bezel is marked around the daytime but on Pepsi it actually marked around night time. And you can’t change the date like you do with a sub etc…

One thing I don’t get is why the GMT hand? I mean, cant you just turn the bezel so that the Mercedes hand is aimed to the 2nd time zone’s hour? Wouldn’t that be easier to read?

[Extract0r]

24 hour hand so you can tell AM from PM at your home time zone


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[Couchpotato]

Originally Posted by Extract0r

24 hour hand so you can tell AM from PM at your home time zone


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Thats not it. I can tell from my pic that its 2:12 locally and 16:12 at home. Why the extra hand.

[mew]

Originally Posted by Couchpotato

Thats not it. I can tell from my pic that its 2:12 locally and 16:12 at home. Why the extra hand.

The Mercedes hand goes around the dial in 12 hours. The gmt bezel is 24.
At 3.12, your home time would show 18.12 which would be incorrect.

[Thuilln]

Originally Posted by Couchpotato

Thats not it. I can tell from my pic that its 2:12 locally and 16:12 at home. Why the extra hand.

Really?

What time will it be at home when it’s 3:00 locally?

[Old Expat Beast]

The Mercedes (hour) hand goes around the dial twice a day, and the GMT/24hr hand goes around once a day. The bezel numbers won't work with the Mercedes hand.

My preference is the 12 hour bezel, where the hour hand does work to read the second rime zone. Here it shows 10:10 and 8:10.

[Couchpotato]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

The Mercedes (hour) hand goes around the dial twice a day, and the GMT/24hr hand goes around once a day. The bezel numbers won't work with the Mercedes hand.

My preference is the 12 hour bezel, where the hour hand does work to read the second rime zone. Here it shows 10:10 and 8:10.

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot more sense now. Maybe I missed it, but there’s no mentioning of it in the Rolex guide manual or their video, only saying how to set it up.

[Rollieo]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

The Mercedes (hour) hand goes around the dial twice a day, and the GMT/24hr hand goes around once a day. The bezel numbers won't work with the Mercedes hand.

My preference is the 12 hour bezel, where the hour hand does work to read the second rime zone. Here it shows 10:10 and 8:10.

Personally I like the 24hr with the black/blue since you can easily distinguish between day/night in the other time zone that you’re tracking with the bezel. With the 12 hour bezel you don’t know if it’s AM/PM in the second time zone.

[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by Rollieo

Personally I like the 24hr with the black/blue since you can easily distinguish between day/night in the other time zone that you’re tracking with the bezel. With the 12 hour bezel you don’t know if it’s AM/PM in the second time zone.

As long as you know if the place you're tracking is ahead or behind, you'll know if it's am or pm there.

[trfChris]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

As long as you know if the place you're tracking is ahead or behind, you'll know if it's am or pm there.

This works for most places, but not all. For instance Sydney is 14 hours ahead if you live in New York, so the 12 hour scale would show +2 hours. Easily fixed though by also remembering if the place is close (read off scale) or really far away (read scale and swap am/pm)

[D.P.G.]

I suggest you watch this video or search Rolex GMT Master ll Operation.
The bezel color on the BLNR your watch makes more sense Blue for day Black for night the Pepsi is Red for day and blue for night which has no relation to the actual color of nature. When used properly the GMT hand is very useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALQn3j0w-38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jTaFmy38xM

[denmanproject]

Originally Posted by D.P.G.

I suggest you watch this video or search Rolex GMT Master ll Operation.
The bezel color on the BLNR your watch makes more sense Blue for day Black for night the Pepsi is Red for day and blue for night which has no relation to the actual color of nature. When used properly the GMT hand is very useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALQn3j0w-38

[Couchpotato]

Originally Posted by D.P.G.

I suggest you watch this video or search Rolex GMT Master ll Operation.
The bezel color on the BLNR your watch makes more sense Blue for day Black for night the Pepsi is Red for day and blue for night which has no relation to the actual color of nature. When used properly the GMT hand is very useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALQn3j0w-38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jTaFmy38xM

Thanks🙂

[denmanproject]

With the bezel being able to rotate you can actually track 3 time zones, I don't do it often (or ever) with my BLNR but it can!

[Mendota]

The original GMT Master 6542 and 1675 only showed 2 time zones. The GMT hand was locked in sync with the hour hand, so you turned the bezel to add 2nd time zone tracking.

The 16760 fat lady was the first GMT Master II and this added the ability to track 3 timezones.

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/ro...ference-points

Now we need one to track 4 time zones! Come on Rolex!

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[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by Mendota

The original GMT Master 6542 and 1675 only showed 2 time zones. The GMT hand was locked in sync with the hour hand, so you turned the bezel to add 2nd time zone tracking.

The 16760 fat lady was the first GMT Master II and this added the ability to track 3 timezones.

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/ro...ference-points

Now we need one to track 4 time zones! Come on Rolex!

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GS makes a few GMT watches with a second 24hr scale, so you can track four (or three at a glance). Some have luminous bezels, too, like the original Rolex GMTs.

[Mendota]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

GS makes a few GMT watches with a second 24hr scale, so you can track four. Some have luminous bezels, too, like the original Rolex GMTs.

Wow! That's fantastic. I looked at the all blue one on the website the other day but I didn't even realize you could track 4 timezones with it.

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[Rollieo]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

GS makes a few GMT watches with a second 24hr scale, so you can track four (or three at a glance). Some have luminous bezels, too, like the original Rolex GMTs.

Funny enough, I have the SBGE257 but I didn’t know you can track 4 time zones due to the second 24hr scale. How do you do that?

I love my SBGE257, but decided to not even use the GMT hand to track a second time zone anymore due to the fixed bezel (I can’t make up my mind on what second time zone to track and it’s not easy changing the GMT hand as it goes with the minutes). I see the fixed bezel on the SBGE257 like the Explorer II, where the “GMT hand” is just to track day/night at the 24 hour scale.

[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by Rollieo

Funny enough, I have the SBGE257 but I didn’t know you can track 4 time zones due to the second 24hr scale. How do you do that?

I love my SBGE257, but decided to not even use the GMT hand to track a second time zone anymore due to the fixed bezel (I can’t make up my mind on what second time zone to track and it’s not easy changing the GMT hand as it goes with the minutes). I see the fixed bezel on the SBGE257 like the Explorer II, where the “GMT hand” is just to track day/night at the 24 hour scale.

Yeah, the SBGE257 isn't a valid example of what I meant if the bezel doesn't rotate. My mistake. The other one will do four time zones though.

Doesn't the SBGE257 hour hand set independently of the GMT hand, though, like the Rolex Explorer II? I thought it had a jump hour hand like the Rolex, so you just set the hour hand to your destination, and keep the GMT hand (and minute hand) where it is to see the time back home.

[Rollieo]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

Yeah, the SBGE257 isn't a valid example of what I meant if the bezel doesn't rotate. My mistake. The other one will do four time zones though.

Doesn't the SBGE257 hour hand set independently of the GMT hand, though, like the Rolex Explorer II? I thought it had a jump hour hand like the Rolex, so you just set the hour hand to your destination, and keep the GMT hand (and minute hand) where it is to see the time back home.

How do you track four time zones when there’s a rotating bezel and secondary 24hr scale on the rehaut? I don’t have one but I’m curious.

Yes correct, on the SBGE257 the hour hand set hand is independent and jumping. In the situation you described, you would have the GMT hand set at time back home (which is what i have by using it as a 24 hour day/night scale that matches local time). The issue is that most of my time is spent at home, so then this is how it’s set normally and the GMT time isn’t tracking a second time zone. If I travel then I can easily use the jump hour to adjust local time.

On the other hand, if I set the GMT time to the second time zone I choose, then when I travel it will always stay at the second time zone while I’m using the jumping hour hand in the new time zone.

Personally I’m not actually much a fan of the jumping hour hand, I think it’s slightly more convenient than just adjusting the hour and minute. On the other hand, when there’s a rotating bezel+GMT hand, you can easily just rotate the bezel and track other time zones on the fly while keeping the local time the same even when you travel (I just move the bezel to the location I’m at, and then the hour hand stays and always is the time back home).

Kind of high-jacked this thread, but it’s still about GMT?

[samson66]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

GS makes a few GMT watches with a second 24hr scale, so you can track four (or three at a glance). Some have luminous bezels, too, like the original Rolex GMTs.

Note on the first watch the bezel does not rotate so you can only track two timezones simultaneously.

[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by samson66

Note on the first watch the bezel does not rotate so you can only track two timezones simultaneously.

Already noted and corrected in post #12

[kilyung]

The nice thing about the GMT was being able to tell time in 3 zones. Nowadays just ask Siri.

[rallyx]

Your watch just had a vaccine shot so now it's grown a third hand.

[dannyp]

Having to rotate the 12-hour hand around to change the date is a worthwhile tradeoff for being able to adjust that hand independently, without the need to stop the watch, then remember exactly what minute to set it to.

Another cool "fun fact" is that, as far as I've seen, this is the only set of watch movements where one can actually set the date backwards.

[OG1982]

Originally Posted by dannyp

Having to rotate the 12-hour hand around to change the date is a worthwhile tradeoff for being able to adjust that hand independently, without the need to stop the watch, then remember exactly what minute to set it to.

Another cool "fun fact" is that, as far as I've seen, this is the only set of watch movements where one can actually set the date backwards.

New Omega movements also have the date backwards feature

[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by Ollie1982

New Omega movements also have the date backwards feature

There are 1960s and 70s Seiko movements that can set the date forward and back, too.

[S52]

The GMT is a pilots watch.

Most of our paperwork, weather forecasts, NOTAM's, flight schedules etc are all noted in Zulu (GMT) time. This is to standardize things and alleviate any errors that may come from trying to use local time when traveling across multiple time zones. Can get very convoluted and confusing when flying long haul flights if you try to use local times for anything.

If a runway at my destination is scheduled to be closed on 2 October from 1200-1600Z then it makes mission planning very simple regardless of what time local zone I am in.

This is what the GMT hand is for. Always set to Zulu time.

The normal hour/minute hand is for the local time wherever I may be. This is why the hand jumps in 1 hour increments thus making it easy to reset time. If I take off from CA and land in NY I know that I crossed 3 time zones so upon landing in NY I simply pop the crown, and click the hour hand forward 3 hours to have the correct local time.

The spinning bezel can be used to track a third time zone. For example if I am in NY on a trip but want to at a glance see the time at home in CA I can spin the bezel appropriately to line up the numbers with what the time is there.

So any time I am on the road or flying I can quickly glance down at my wrist and tell what Zulu time is which is relevant to my flight, what the local time at my destination is, and the time at home.

[alphadweller]

24h bezel needs 24h hand