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 to Put Winlink on Your Radio: Saturday, August 29, 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. 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 KK4EWT Wilcox gave us an introductory program on the basics of Winlink July 24. This will be on our YouTube account soon, with the link on the Programs page, for those who couldn’t make the meeting. 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. You can bring your radios and get expert help to get Winlink up and running.
We will also be having a snack/desert at the exercise.
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 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 15 at 8:30 AM at Goldent Corral on Town Square Blvd in Roanoke.
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:
