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
Nominations for Club Officers Needed
The RVARC will be holding their annual election of officers on September 11, 2026. Anyone interested in running for office, (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer), please contact the nominating committee:
Fred Krack NS4TT fred.krack@cox.net
Floyd Ponton AI4FP fponton53@gmail.com
We now have these digital connections up and running. So feel free to renew your membership, start a new membership, or donate to the club through these links below:
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. RVARC is selling an ICOM 7000 radio set. You can find the information on it on the Trading Post page.
Program to Put Winlink on Your Radio: Saturday, August 29, 10:00 AM following our Meeting with Eating at 8:30 AM at Golden Corral.
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. We need more people on the ARES net on Tuesday night 7PM, and prepared to use Winlink to send messages when a disaster occurs.
Tom Wilcox W4TKW gave us an introductory program on the basics of Winlink July 24. This is now on our YouTube account, as well as on the Programs page, for those who couldn’t make the meeting. Everyone should learn this.
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. You can bring your radios and get expert help to get Winlink up and running.
We are moving our Meeting with Eating to this Saturday morning, August 29 at 8:30, and then we will adjourn to the Red Cross building for the program starting at 10:00.
So we hope there will be an increased interest/participation in getting on Winlink and being ready to help in time of an emergency.
RVARC Is Headed for Go Fest October 16-18. We Need Your Help!
RVARC has been accepted by Roanoke Go Fest to have a table for Friday through Sunday at both locations, Elmwood Park Basecamp and Explorer Park Outpost. So now we need to man the tables, and I’m sure we can do it. The goal is to spread the word about ham radio, get people to know about it and get interested in it. With our membership, full of ham radio enthusiasts, I’m sure we can do a good job.
We are sharing a table with the Red Cross. They have also approved us having the Red Cross trailer at the Elmwood Park site. So we hope to be able to show a digital map on screen of the contacts we make through the weekend, to show people the extent of ham radio.
With our new DX commander antenna, we should be able to reach all frequencies. If there is someone out there familiar with Elmwood Park that could pinpoint the best location for us, please let Linda Cheek KQ4VGS know (webmaster@w4ca.com)
We need a small committee of members to work out the logistic details of this project. Please volunteer to webmaster@w4ca.com.
Here are the ideas we have so far:
- Set up a special event station and collect contacts from all over the world. People can walk by, hear this going on and look at a map to see where contacts have been made.
- Set up a “Get on the air.” Station where people can talk on the radio themselves.
- Demonstrate the usefulness of 2 meter communications for outdoor activities and emergencies.
- If we have any loose hams with handhelds walking around the park, they can connect with people and let them communicate with the base station.
The vendor coordinator of the Go Fest seemed really excited about our participation. Let’s do a good job of promoting ham radio to the area.
Below you will see a calendar of the days and hours we need volunteers. Naturally at the beginning and end of each day, the person assigned will need to set up or break down. People can bring their own radios, or they can use the radio of RVARC, which is a YAESU 991A that can handle all frequencies.
Please submit the day and hour and station that you can man to webmaster@w4ca.com. Also the mode you would want to transmit on, if you know it, like 20 meter, 40 meter, etc. I will put your call sign in the picture below, and the prospective mode. We could use 2 people at each station continuously, with replacements at any point. Never leave the radios unattended.
RVARC Hamfest August 1, 2026
A fantastic, successful hamfest was held from 8AM to 1PM on August 1. Statistics will be available later.
Event Details
The hamfest was held at a new location at the Roanoke City Fire and EMS Training Center. They were very gracious, giving us access to multiple rooms as well as a parking area for our outside flea market.
Marty K4EQS Rosendale thanks all of the volunteers, vendors, and participants that came to make our hamfest such as success.
Testing
We held a testing session. Information on those results will be added in the future.
Vendors
Thank you to Reliance Antennas, HC Baker, American Red Cross, and ARRL for coming and supporting our hamfest. Your participation means a lot.
Thanks also to all the hams who participated in the flea market or who shared their knowledge at an inside table, such as Robert and Dorinda with hams.live.
Also, check out our new banner!
Thank you, Volunteers!
Future 2026 Planned Events
August 29 – Set up Winlink
September 13 – Blue Ridge Bonanza
October – Radios In Ther Park
October 17-18 – JOTA
November 1 – Mill Mountain Star
December – Holiday Party
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
Our next meeting with eating will be August 29 at 8:30 AM at Golden Corral on Town Square Blvd in Roanoke. This will be prior to our program at the Red Cross on getting our radios set up for Winlink.
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:
