"Introduction Administrations participating in the Regional Agreement concerning the VHF radiotelephone service on the river Rhine have developed a system for the automatic identification of maritime VHF radiotelephone equipment (ATIS). This ATIS system will eventually be employed in all maritime VHF radiotelephones@ for hand-held and fixed installations@ on-board inland waterway vessels sailing the river Rhine@ and the Netherlands inland waterways. Implementation of ATIS on a mandatory basis for maritime VHF radiotelephones on such vessels is expected to be completed in 1994. The ATIS signal format is based on Recommendation 493 *- Digital Selective Calling - for use in the maritime mobile service and on Recommendation 7 of the Regional Rhine Agreement. * NOTE BY THE CCIR SECRETARIAT: In the revision of Recommendation 493 certain terms have been changed (for example ""signal"" and ""symbol"" have been replaced with the term ""character"" in a number of places in Annex I."