Everything you need to know, answered

noIM₃ is a radio engineering business from Adelaide, South Australia. We build RF, electrical and communications engineering tools to published standards for engineers anywhere, and in Australia we coordinate frequencies and lodge ACMA apparatus licence applications. One team designs it, licenses it and builds it.

Engineers and the organisations they work for: RF and electrical engineers, communications and systems designers, integrators, operators and licensees. The tools suit an individual consultant as well as an in-house engineering team, and the services suit anyone who needs a frequency assigned, a licence portfolio looked after, or a design or a tool built.

Communications engineering is still pieced together from generic calculators, register exports and spreadsheets. On noIM₃ the calculations, the ACMA register and the reports sit in one place, tool by tool, and when a job needs a licence, a design or a tool of its own, the same team can do it.

No. We are an Australian business, but the engineering tools implement international methods and are open to engineers in any country. The ACMA tools, licensing and spectrum management cover Australia, because the ACMA licenses Australian spectrum. Prices are in Australian dollars.

No. Every tool runs in your web browser on any device, with nothing to download or install. Most of the free calculators open without an account; the rest need a free one.

It is how we weigh every frequency assignment against the sites around it. The full national licence register is pulled fresh every day. The engine works out which channels can still be assigned at every site, counts what each option would take from the sites around it, and where the rules leave a choice, takes the channel that leaves the most room for the next site.

It is on our roadmap and not available yet. A digital twin will put the models behind every tool in motion, so a design can be tested as a living system, under load and under stress, before it is built. It is planned for Elite and Enterprise.

105 tools are live today: RF and antenna utilities, intermodulation and frequency coordination, the HF Link Planner, the Link Planner for microwave and point-to-point links, the Coverage Predictor, leaky feeder and in-building DAS design, private LTE, RF EME exposure, fibre optic and network cabling, CCTV, serial and digital signal processing, electrical tools from voltage drop to earthing and BESS and solar, and engineering delivery documents such as cable schedules and commissioning checklists. New tools are added regularly.

81 of the 105 live tools are free on Standard, with no time limit. The other 24 are Pro tools, including the HF Link Planner, Link Planner, Coverage Predictor, Leaky Feeder Designer, In-building DAS Designer, Intermodulation Calculator, Frequency Coordination Tool, Frequency Plan Validator, Frequency Plan Optimiser, RF EME Exposure Modeller, BESS & Solar System Designer and ACMA Database Map. The pricing page lists every tool by tier.

Yes. Calculations implement the published methods of ITU-R, ETSI, 3GPP, ARPANSA and Standards Australia, and the electrical tools follow Australian Standards such as AS/NZS 3000 and AS/NZS 3008. Propagation and link modules are verified against independent reference implementations of the ITU-R Recommendations they apply, and cite the edition used.

From the ACMA's own Register of Radiocommunications Licences. The full national licence register is pulled fresh every day, and the ACMA Database Map prints the date of the copy it is showing. The ACMA maintains the register, so a correction to a licence record has to be made with the ACMA.

The ACMA Database Query is free on Standard: search the full licence register as a table. The ACMA Database Map, the ACMA Spectrum Tool in our menus, is a Pro tool and can be your chosen tool on Flex. It maps every licensed site, with the site detail, the incumbents around a proposed site, point-to-point links, a portfolio of the sites you track, and site reports paid for with credits.

Depending on the tool: terrain and land cover from Copernicus, OpenTopography, Geoscience Australia and ESA WorldCover, space weather from the Bureau of Meteorology for HF, solar and climate data from NASA POWER, public propagation reports from WSPR.live and PSKReporter, and base maps from Mapbox, CARTO, Esri, Google and OpenStreetMap.

A library of real equipment the tools draw on: more than 55,000 components across 35 categories, including antennas, cables and radio equipment. It is free on Standard, and you can ask for a part to be added from inside it.

Results you can use: calculations, designs and exports. On every tier you can copy and export your results. Professional reports and exports, such as PDF reports and CSV, KML, KMZ, GeoTIFF and GeoJSON files, come with the Pro tools: your chosen tool on Flex, and every Pro tool on Pro and above.

Yes. Reports, calculations, designs and exports you generate are yours to use: copy and adapt them, include them in your own deliverables, and give them to your clients, employers and project partners. That right continues after your subscription ends. Results you generate yourself are advisory engineering aids, not frequency assignments made by an accredited person, and should be reviewed by a suitably qualified engineer.

Not yet. API access is in development, and you can register your interest on the API page in your account.

Not for most of the free calculators: they open without one. A free account, verified by email, is needed to download results and reports, to save projects, and for the Pro, ACMA and catalogue tools. You also do not need one to read the tool overviews, estimate ACMA fees with the fee calculator, or send us an ACMA licensing request.

Anyone 18 or over, in any country, using noIM₃ for professional work. If you sign up on behalf of an organisation, you must be authorised to accept the Terms for it.

Yes, when you are signed in. Many tools save your work automatically in your browser, so it is there the next time you open the tool on the same device. When you save a project while signed in, a copy is also kept in your account so you can open it on other devices. Saving is included on every tier, and each tool keeps its own projects. Without an account the project tools save nothing, but if you sign up from the tool, the work on screen comes with you.

Not on the self serve plans. A login is for one person, and sharing it needs an Enterprise or reseller arrangement with us. Team features such as shared projects, approvals and permissions are planned for Enterprise and are still being built.

Our databases are hosted in Sydney and encrypted at rest, and our website servers run in the United States. Every connection uses HTTPS, passwords are stored only as salted hashes, and card details go straight to Stripe and never reach our servers.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the providers that run the platform for us and as our Privacy Policy sets out, for example with the ACMA when we lodge an application for you.

When you choose a frequency for a site in our spectrum tools, we keep the frequency, bandwidth and location, and nothing else. The record is anonymous and never shown to other customers. It is used for one purpose: so that a frequency checked for a nearby site does not interfere with yours. It stays in our calculations after an account closes, because a frequency in use still needs protecting.

Only the cookies needed to run the platform, such as the one that keeps you signed in. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and our page analytics do not use cookies.

Yes. You can ask for the personal information we hold about you, and for a copy of your saved projects in a machine-readable format. Email us or use the contact page. We respond within 30 days, and there is no charge.

Use Delete Account on your Account page. We email you a link to confirm before anything is deleted. Closing your account ends any subscription straight away, the unused part of the billing period is not refunded, and purchased credits are not refunded. We keep the records the law requires, such as ACMA coordination records.

Standard is free. Flex is $29 a month, Pro $59 and Elite $119, or pay yearly and get two months free: $290, $590 and $1,190 a year. Enterprise is quoted. Prices are in Australian dollars and exclude GST.

Standard gives you every free tool with no time limit, including the ACMA Database Query for searching the register. Flex adds any one Pro tool of your choice, with the ACMA backend and professional reporting for that tool. Pro adds every Pro tool, with the ACMA backend and professional reporting across all of them. Elite and Enterprise are planned to add workflow automation, BOM generation and the digital twin, and Enterprise the team features. Those features are still being built, and are marked Coming on the pricing page.

Yes. When you verify your email, your new account gets 14 days of full access to every Pro tool, with no card required to start. When the trial ends your account stays on Standard with every free tool, including the ACMA Database Query, and you upgrade only if you want to. Work you saved in Pro tools is kept. One trial is available per person or organisation.

Flex is for the engineer who lives in one tool. You get everything in Standard, plus any one Pro tool of your choice, with its ACMA backend, live data feeds and professional reporting. You choose it on your dashboard, and you can change your pick once each calendar month as your work changes. You can step up to Pro at any time.

Today Elite includes the same tools as Pro. Its own features, workflow automation, BOM generation, the digital twin and customer environment simulation, are still being built and arrive on your account as they ship. Elite is in early access, so accounts are set up individually rather than through self serve checkout. Pricing is the same as shown on the pricing page.

Enterprise is for teams: everything in Elite, plus projects shared across companies with approvals and audit trails, team permissions, enterprise integrations, custom digital twins and portfolio reporting. Those features are still being built. Pricing depends on team size and project volume, so we quote it after a conversation.

No. Prices are in Australian dollars and exclude GST. GST at 10% is added at checkout, so you see the full amount before you pay.

Self serve plans, credit packs and courses are paid by card through Stripe. Where your procurement needs an invoice or a purchase order, which is usual for mining, utility and government buyers, that is an Enterprise agreement. ACMA services and consulting are invoiced, and are payable within 14 days of the invoice date. Your subscription invoices are under Manage billing on your Account page.

Yes to both. You can move up at any time: you pay the difference between the two plans for your current billing period, then the new price from your next renewal. A move down applies at your next renewal, with no lock in. Paying yearly gives you two months free on Flex, Pro and Elite, and Enterprise is quoted annually as part of your agreement.

You can cancel at any time from your Account page. Your plan keeps running to the end of the period you have paid for, then your account moves to Standard with every free tool, and your saved work is kept.

We do not refund change of mind or the unused part of a billing period. We do refund a charge we made by mistake, in full. If we change our Terms against you, or remove a tool from a plan you pay for, we email you at least 30 days before, and you can cancel and get back the unused part of any period you paid in advance. Nothing limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

If a subscription payment is not made, we may move your account to the Standard tier. You can update your card under Manage billing on your Account page.

Prices and what a tier includes can change with reasonable notice, and a change applies from the start of your next billing period. If a change is worse for you, we email you at least 30 days before it takes effect, and you can cancel and get back the unused part of any period you paid in advance.

Credits pay for some reports and studies on the platform, such as the site reports and studies in the ACMA Database Map. Your balance is shown on your Account page.

Your tier may include a monthly credit allowance, shown on your Account page. The allowance resets every 30 days, and unused allowance does not carry over. You can also buy credit packs.

Purchased credits do not expire while your account is open. Credits have no cash value and are not refunded, including when you close your account, except where the Australian Consumer Law requires it. If we stop offering the reports and studies they pay for, or close your account for our convenience, we refund your unused purchased credits.

If a report or study fails to build because of a fault on our side, we automatically return the credits it used to the balance they came from.

No. Reports are built from the ACMA register as it stands. They show what is licensed, but they cannot show what is physically installed or how it actually performs, so none of them is a compliance certificate.

Our director is the ACMA accredited person who makes each frequency assignment, and noIM₃ lodges the application with the ACMA. Our accreditation is general, so it is not limited to a particular service, band or licence type.

Yes. Send us a request from the ACMA Licensing page. We review the details and reply with a fixed quote and next steps. Once you accept it, our accredited person coordinates the frequency, our director reviews the assignment, and we lodge the application with the ACMA.

Submitting a request is free, and you do not need an account. Choose the service on the ACMA Licensing page: a point-to-point link, a point-to-area or land mobile system, a new licensee, a new site, or Not sure / Other. We reply with a fixed quote before anything is charged: our fee plus GST, and the ACMA's own fees at cost, each shown separately. A quote can be accepted for 30 days, and work starts when you accept it.

No. If you are a new or unknown ACMA client, choose the New Licensee service and we will set that up as part of your application.

Fixed point-to-point links, point-to-area land mobile and base station systems, repeaters, and wide area services. If you are not sure which form fits, or you do not have the technical detail yet, talk to us and we will work it out with you.

No. Apparatus licensing is federal, so an accredited person can coordinate and lodge anywhere in Australia, including remote mine and regional sites.

Accepted work is invoiced and payable within 14 days of the invoice date. GST applies to our fee only, and the ACMA's fees are passed through at cost. Where a lodgement or renewal needs fees paid first, we may wait for payment before we lodge, so pay in time for any deadline.

Once you accept, our fee is payable and is not refunded, including if you change your mind or cancel. Changes and cancellations after that are done as a variation, which we quote before we do the work, and any ACMA fees for the change are extra, at cost. Please check every detail of your request before you accept.

That is the ACMA's decision. We lodge an application coordinated to the ACMA's rules and tell you the outcome, but no one can promise that a licence will be issued. If the ACMA refuses an application because of an error in our work, we correct it and resubmit at no charge for our work.

Yes. Requests made with your account's email address appear under Services on your Account page, with their status. A completed order means our engineering work is done; whether the licence is issued is the ACMA's decision.

Checking that a proposed frequency can be used at a site without interfering with existing licensees, or suffering interference from them, under the ACMA's rules for the band. Our accredited person does this as part of a licensing engagement. The platform's Frequency Coordination Tool helps with one part of it: it searches for transmit and receive frequency pairs that are clear of intermodulation with the carriers already licensed at a site.

An apparatus licence is the ACMA licence that authorises a particular transmitter or service, such as a land mobile base station or a fixed point-to-point link, under conditions including frequency, bandwidth, power and antenna details. You need one for a service that a class licence or a spectrum licence does not cover. Where the licence has an assigned frequency, an accredited person can coordinate it and make the assignment.

Under the current ACMA fee schedule, if a renewal request for an assigned licence is not received within 60 days after the old licence expires, the frequency assignment and the call sign become available for assignment to other services. You then have to apply for a new issue of the licence, and whether you get it back depends on whether the frequency is still available, at the full new issue charge rather than the renewal charge.

No. A straight renewal is an administrative action with no frequency assignment behind it, so there is no coordination and no frequency assignment certificate involved. The ACMA's renewal charge is $4 per spectrum access under the current fee schedule, on top of the annual licence tax. Accredited person work is triggered by a spectrum access being assigned: a new licence issue, or a variation that changes the assignment.

A renewal continues the licence as it stands. Anything that changes the assignment itself, such as the site location, frequency, power or emission designator, is a variation and needs the assignment work redone. Under the current fee schedule, a variation accompanied by a frequency assignment certificate from an accredited person is $28 for each frequency assignment involved, while a variation without a certificate, where the ACMA performs the technical coordination, attracts the applicable charge for first issue of the licence.

Yes. The ACMA fee calculator estimates the ACMA's charges for a licence from the ACMA's own fee schedule, with no account needed. It is an estimate, not a quote.

Yes. We are recorded as your nominated contact with the ACMA, track the expiry of every licence we manage, arrange its renewal, and do the accredited person work when an assignment has to change. You stay the licensee, and you can start with part of the portfolio and add the rest later.

A management fee per licence per year, quoted once we have checked what you hold against the register. Send us your ACMA client numbers to start. We pay the ACMA's charges for the licences we manage and invoice you for them at cost.

Either of us can end it with 30 days' written notice, and we then ask the ACMA to record you, or a contact you nominate, in our place. The management fee for the current year is not refunded, except for a change that is worse for you or where the Australian Consumer Law requires it.

We redo the work needed to restore it, including a new frequency assignment if one is needed, at no charge for our work. The ACMA decides whether the licence is issued again, and the same frequency may no longer be available.

Yes. We carry out site audits and licence portfolio reviews against the ACMA register, and you can run a Site Register Audit report yourself in the ACMA Database Map. A register audit shows what is licensed at a site. It cannot show what is physically installed or how it actually performs, so it is not a compliance certificate.

Four practices. ACMA licensing, coordination and spectrum management. RF and wireless design: coverage, microwave and point-to-point links, intermodulation and co-site studies, leaky feeder and DAS, and RF EME assessments to ARPANSA RPS S-1. Electrical design for communications sites: DC power, battery and solar, cable sizing to AS/NZS 3000 and AS/NZS 3008, generators and earthing. And custom engineering software.

Tell us the problem, in your own words. We send a fixed quote with the scope, price and timeline before any work starts, and nothing is charged until you accept it. Work outside the quoted scope is quoted separately before we do it.

Yes. Every tool on this site was designed, built and shipped by us. If you can describe the calculation, we can build the tool, with integrations, reports and accounts if you need them, hosted and maintained. Ownership and hosting are agreed in the quote before work starts.

It is set out in the quote or agreement for the job. Where that is silent, we keep our tools, methods and background IP, and you get a perpetual licence to use the deliverable for the purpose it was commissioned for.

Yes, as self-paced online courses for communications and electrical engineers, covering areas such as ACMA licensing and frequency coordination, HF and microwave link planning, leaky feeder design, RF EME exposure and ARPANSA compliance, cabling standards and electrical wiring rules. They are not on sale yet: some are still being written, and others are written and ready while pricing is finalised. Register your interest on a course page and we will let you know when it opens.

You read each unit at your own pace, on any device, and your progress is saved to your account. You answer graded questions, which you can re-sit with your best attempt counting, and when you pass the module a certificate of completion is issued with a verifiable serial number.

No. It is professional development, not a nationally recognised qualification, and noIM₃ is not a registered training organisation. Anyone with the serial number can check on our verification page that a certificate is genuine.

Courses are not refunded once bought, except where the Australian Consumer Law requires it. You can access a course you have bought for as long as we offer it, including revisions we make to it.

Use the contact form and choose the kind of enquiry, or call us on 0498 150 733. We aim to respond within 2 business days. For an ACMA licence, use the request forms on the ACMA Licensing page, which come straight to us.

noIM3 Pty Ltd (ACN 696 098 316, ABN 60 696 098 316), trading as noIM₃, based in Adelaide, South Australia. We are a member of the Australian Radio Communications Industry Association (ARCIA).