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)

Facebook group: rvarc.w4ca

Email list: Get signed up HERE

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

There will be no RVARC program meeting on Friday, June 26. In its place we will be participating in the ARRL Field day on Saturday June 27th to Sunday, June 28th.

ARRL Field June 27-28 at Virginia Western Community College

ARRL Field Day is ham radio’s annual “open house” and the largest single emergency preparedness exercise in the United States and Canada. This year, held on June 27 and 28, it brings together over 30,000 amateur radio operators to set up temporary, off-grid transmitting stations in public places. This year’s Field Day theme is “Amateur Radio: A National Resource.”
The event is a unique mix of public service, technical skill, competitive fun, and community outreach.
The foundational goal is to practice deploying temporary, reliable communications equipment under less-than-optimal conditions. This simulates what hams do during a natural disaster or crisis when traditional grid power, cell towers, and internet infrastructure fail (“When All Else Fails”).

Event Details

What: Roanoke Valley Amateur Radio Club / ARRL Field Day — The largest annual amateur (“ham”) radio exercise and public demonstration in North America.
Who: Everyone, open to the general public, families, and tech enthusiasts
When: Saturday, June 27 (Set up at 8:00AM, Radio Activation begins at 2:00 PM ET) – Sunday, June 28, 2026 (ends at 2:00 PM)
Where: Virginia Western Community College – Parking Lot 14, 3094 Colonial Ave. Roanoke, VA
Testing: A testing session for all license levels of ham radio operation will be held Saturday, June 27 at 10:00AM.

🎙️ YOU Can Talk to the World!

No license? No problem! Visit our dedicated GOTA (Get On The Air) station. With the help of a coach, visitors of all ages can step up to the microphone, operate a real high-frequency radio, and make a voice contact with someone hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Amateur Radio Operators contact Marty.Rosendale@RedCross.org, RVARC Club President, if you are interested in operating. We hope to have 6 stations operating on 160-, 80-, 40-, 20-,15- and 10-meter HF bands, as well as all bands above 50 MHz.

There are more than 750,000 licensed hams in the United States, as young as 9 and as old as 100. With clubs such as the Roanoke Valley Amateur Radio Club, it is easy for anyone to get involved right here in our local area

Supper Saturday night will be pot luck, so please bring your favorite dish to share. We will set it up around 4:30

We will be adding two entertaining events to Field Day.

A Fox hunt. Bring your radio with the antenna you built in May and have some fun locating the fox on campus.
Music jam. Several hams enjoy playing musical instruments. We are going to get together sometime around the dinner hour to play some tunes. Bring your instrument and join us. This is a new activity for us, so please bear with us as we create it. If you have experience in jamming with any type of music, please join us and help.

Future 2026 Planned Events

June 27-28– Field Day Lot 14 at Virginia Western
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

Our next Meeting with Eating is July 11 at 8:30 AM at Golden Corral, 1441 Town Square Blvd, Roanoke.

We will again arrange tables behind the fireplace next to the ice cream machine. We need more people participating. Please consider bringing your family and join in the fun. We have a great time getting to know each other more personally.

W4CA