Operator Requirements Copy
Radio Licence Information
Under the Radiocommunications Act 1992, the installation and operation of marine radio equipment aboard any Australian vessel must be authorised by a licence. In the case of marine VHF equipment on board an Australian vessel, this is authorised by a maritime ship station class licence. A copy of this class licence is available from ACMA. Radio call signs are no longer issued by ACMA for marine VHF. However existing radio call signs may still be used.
What this class licence lets you do
This class licence lets you operate a maritime ship station on designated channels:
- 27 MHz
- VHF
All users operate on shared frequencies.
You may also use:
- certain UHF radio equipment
- navigation radars on a ship
You must be qualified to operate VHF marine radio equipment under this class licence.
Licence rules
You don’t need to apply for a class licence or pay any fees.
But you must follow all the rules in the:
Your equipment cannot exceed the maximum power stated in the class licence (25 Watt in this case – some marine radios will just have a “low” and “high” switch. I.e., 1 Watt and 25 Watts).
The class licence does not authorize the operation of a “home base”. Except in special cases, marine radio equipment in private residences will not be authorised by ACMA.
Operators Qualifications
As a minimum, under the above licence conditions, all operators of marine VHF equipment are required to possess the Marine Radio Operators VHF Certificate of Proficiency (MROVCP) as issued by the Office of Maritime Communications (OMC), a branch of the AMC, on behalf of ACMA. This is now referred to as a Short Range Operator Certificate of Proficiency (SROCP).
So for the purposes of SROCP:
No requirement to “licence” the VHF Radio equipment: just a licence required to use it.