W4CA
Roanoke Valley Amateur Radio Club (RVARC) is dedicated to the advancement of amateur radio, serving Southwest Virginia, since 1932
Mission Statement
To provide emergency communications services to the community;
assist other civic organizations;
promote the technical craft of amateur radio
through class training and testing;
mentor new amateur operators and members;
and enhance fellowship among radio amateurs.
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Join Us
Meetings: 2nd and 4th Fridays at the American Red Cross (see footer for more information)
Officers
President: Martin K4EQS Rosendale president@w4ca.com
Vice President: Ben KK4EWT Williams viecpresident@w4ca.com
Secretary: Linda KQ4VGS Cheek secretary@w4ca.com
Treasurer: Doug N4MGW Kabler treasurer@w4ca.com
Membership/Webmaster: Linda KQ4VGS Cheek membership@w4ca.com, webmaster@w4ca.com
ARES DEC: FM KI4LH Hite ARES@w4ca.com
Directors: Scott KN4ZFI Shrewsbury, James KN4MKX Pascoe, William N4ZSG Dodge, Tom W4TKW Wilcox coreteam@w4ca.com
We are working on these digital connections and they are not ready yet. So please do not use them yet. When they are ready to go, we will remove this message block.
Facebook group: rvarc.w4ca
Email list: Get signed up HERE
Make a Payment
Pay your dues
(click on the credit cards)
Apply For Membership
Fill out the form HERE and send to roanokevalleyarc@gmail.com.
Support the club and ham radio by giving a donation of any amount you wish. Program Introducing Winlink on Friday, July 24, with dessert!
Many of us are involved in ham radio to be available for communication in emergencies. And even those who are involved for other reasons, will, I’m sure, volunteer if and when a disaster occurs. Statistically, the Roanoke Valley is due for a disaster of some kind. So let’s be ready.
RVARC is going to present an introduction to Winlink–a method of using radio gateways to send emails through the air via radio instead of through the internet. This will be a major method of communication when disaster occurs. But it takes a bit of knowhow to get your computer and radio working together. Does the picture on the left look a bit complicated? That’s why you need to learn this technique.
At our Friday, July 24th program meeting we will be presenting basic information on Winlink. Everyone should learn this. Then, our August program meeting is planned to be an exercise, on Saturday Aug 29 instead of the Friday night meeting, where we will actually teach how to set up Winlink. Hopefully all active hams will get involved with this, to be ready for the emminent disasters.
To entice you even further (you know the way to a person’s heart is through his/her stomach), we will be supplying a snack/desert at the program meeting and exercise.
So we hope there will be a large attendence at both of these functions, to show that RVARC is ready to help in emergencies.
ARRL Field June 27-28 at Virginia Western Community College
Field Day was a slam-dunk success. The clouds kept us reasonably cool. The little bit of rain/drizzle that fell actually felt good, or reduced the heat.
Event Details
We had 3 stations active, one through the night with Pat N3AYW and one CW station manned by Avery KZ4WC. If anyone has any more information on the stations, please let me know.
Testing
We had a testing session with 3 techs and 1 extra. We look forward to the new techs joining our club and participating in future activities.
Comradery
A great time was had by all. Mike K2JKL and his wife Monica came by Saturday. It was great to see him and visit with them. Dave KS4BO came without his trailer. He has only missed 2 field days since 1962. Thank you, Dave, for being so dependable and supportive of ham radio.
Please check out the pictures to the right and below.
Future 2026 Planned Events
August 1 – Hamfest
September 6 – Blue Ridge Bonanza
October – Radios In Ther Park
October 17-18 – JOTA
November 1 – Mill Mountain Star
December – Holiday Party
RVARC Hamfest
It’s time to get ready for the Hamfest August 1. Marty K4EQS Rosendale is heading the Hamfest. If you would like to help with the hamfest, contact him at president@w4ca.com.
We have a new venue. See the pictures below . It will be held at the Roanoke Fire and EMS Training Center at 802 River Avenue SE. We are blessed with a large auditorium for set up for the vendors and participants as well as side rooms for training, activities, and programs. Outside there is room for vendors, and there will be food trucks available for meals.
Information on the Hamfest can also be found at
https://roanokehamfest.info/
Help Get the 4 Mile Roanoke Mountain Loop Road Open
The 4 mile Loop Road on Roanoke Mountain has been a destination for ham radio operation for years. It was closed down in 2018 with the flooding that wiped out the road in sections. It takes Federal funds to repair federal park or parkway sites, and this repair has been seriously ignored. We need to communicate with our federal legislators to get the funding appropriated to get this road opened back up.
If you would help, please communicate with your Congressman/woman and Senators. To find the contact information for your legislator, go to:
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
For Senator Kaine, go to https://www.kaine.senate.gov/contact/share-your-opinion
For Senator Warner, go to https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactPage
Looking for a Few Good Men and Women
By Pat N3AYW Lewis
Recently a local served agency asked if there was a way to connect two cities (in Virginia ) for keyboard to keyboard emergency “comms” .
BUT without any infrastructure in between….. no links, no internet, no satellites, no packet modems
AND this mode would allow humans to talk to humans almost real time but have the weak signal and error correction just like the proven programs used for sending messages via Winlink.
Turns out…
Vara Chat ( Varac or VarAC ) already does an incredible job of many things hams like to do. Even QSO ing…. Actually communicating directly… just like CW or voice at a distance. But Vara Chat has many more secrets….even beyond hams texting ( hi hi )
So. If you are up to the challenge, you should load the free program and try it. It looks complicated at first. Runs on the same computers as Winlink ( either windows 10 or 11 at my shack with ICOM 7300 , 9700, and 705 so far )
My hope is that some more local hams will adopt Vara Chat, and help me learn how to use it ( both of VHF and HF ). And sometime this year live testing between two Red Cross teams in different towns can be supported by a communication technique that doesn’t require cell phones, satellites, or internet ( or even repeaters). Human to human in effect. But for now we can experiment and play and learn locally too.
Meeting With Eating
We had a great gathering of hams at our meeting with eating on July 11. We talked about ways to get more hams involved in projects, meetings, etc. Hopefully our conversations will bear some fuition. See the enjoyment of the food below:
