A  free  service  for   Maritime  Mobile.

A Tanker ship during a storm in the Atlantic

The basic activity of IARMS is to relay Weather Reports to sailing vessels and small ships not fitted with satellite. Nowadays, after the entrance of satellite system, few Coast Radio Stations continue to broadcast WX on HF bands and sometimes it is not easy for sailing vessels to tune these stations because of propagation conditions and because they operate basically in digital modes - sailing vessels are usually not equipped by computers or they cannot be used because of the state of the sea (hard mouvements of the vessels during high sea do not permit to operate a PC safely). SSB communications are very easy to run expecially if the shore stations are well equipped with rotative antennas which permit to beam the vessels in the Ocean to obtain the maximum signal strenght on the receivers. The IARMS, born in the year 2000, and transmits on the HF band of 20 meters (14.297 kHz), frequently updated weather forecasts and wind predictions, the service is free  because made by volunteer radio operators with past experience at sea. To enter in contact with the IARMS is necessary to have an amateur radio licence (callsign)  issued by the Government Authorities of skippers' Countries according to the ITU regulations. The Net is on the air every evening at 19:00 UTC, in some periods of the year according to the propagation conditions the Net time could be set one hour slow or fast  after previous announces on the working frequency.The Net also operate on alternate frequency of 14.307 kHz when the main frequency is inoperable

Procedure for Maritime Mobiles to enter the Net.

IARMS Announcing Call

..." CQ CQ CQ THIS IS IK6IJF IK6IJF IK6IJF FOR THE ITALIAN MARITIME MOBILE NET WE HAVE WEATHER REPORTS FOR THE FOLLOWING ARES..........ANY MARITIME MOBILE CHECK-IN?

VESSEL required Informations 

AMATEUR RADIO CALLSIGN - POSITION - COURSE - SPEED - WX CONDITIONS.

For the First check-in it is necessary to pass to the Net Control Station or to a Relay Station the following informations:

Name of the Vessel.

Type of the Vessel.

Operator Name.

Number of People on board.

Last port of call.

Destination.

Radio equipment on board.

Epirb or satellite alert system on board with Identification Code.