While RATS Frostfest is on hiatus, you might enjoy these other nearby hamfests.  If you're up for a little bit of a drive, please consider supporting one of these upcoming events:

Vienna Wireless Society's 47th WINTERFEST is Sunday, March 19 at Oakton High School in Vienna, Virginia, around two hours north of Richmond.  Tailgating starts at 7 AM and the indoor portion of the show begins at 8 AM.  Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door.  Talk-in on 146.91(-) repeater, PL 77.0. [WINTERFEST Web Site & Tickets, Flyer, Directions]

The Third Annual Gloucester MPARC Hamfest will be held Saturday, April 8 from 9 AM to 4 PM at the Abingdon Ruritan Club, 8784 Guinea Rd in Hayes, Virginia.  That's just over an hour east of Richmond, or 30 minutes north of Newport News.  Indoor and outdoor vendor spaces are available.  Admission is $5.00, children 12 and under free.  Talk-in on 145.37(-) W4HZL/R.  [MPARC Web Site, Flyer, Directions]

The Greene County Virginia Amateur Radio Club is hosting their first annual Thawfest ham radio show on Saturday, April 22 at the American Legion Post, 636 Madison Road in Standardsville, VA.  This is about 90 minutes northwest of Richmond, or 40 minutes north of Charlottesville.  Outdoor and indoor vendor spaces are available.  Admission is $5, children under 14 free.  Talk-in on 145.47(-) PL 151.4.  [Thawfest Web Site, Flyer, Directions]

We will be having a Zoom meeting (it is under our meetings tab) to discuss Frostfest 24 on 1/12.23 @7pm to 8:30pm.   I have made a form for people to fill out to help us know where to put you if you're willing to help. 

Link to the form

https://forms.gle/h2HWZUu1CVCHyNz37

Update:  As of 7:35p 1/2/2023, the repeater is back in service.

The W4RAT 146.88 repeater is temporarily off the air for emergency maintenance.  The 442.55 repeater remains on the air but may experience brief disruptions this evening.  Further updates will be posted to the Repeater Status page.  Thank you for your patience.

Everyone from RATS Board would like to wish everyone a happy holiday and New Year 

The Lease has been signed and paid for.  

Thanks to everyone for their hard work and dedication in getting this resolved

RATS will be staying at the current site for the foreseeable future.

I would like to thank all that have emailed asking about Frost Fest 2023.

We will not be having a Frost Fest this year due to the rebuilding of RATS and getting our ducks in a row.  

We are looking for Members that want to take a role in making Frost Fest 2024 a reality, it takes about 10 months of planning and organizing to make it happen.

Please Email Board@rats.net if you would like to help. 

Without help I don't know if a Frost Fest 2024 will happen 

All please program your radio to do C4FM on the TX Freq.  The Repeater will TX back to everyone analog.    [More information]

The club used to publish a member newsletter called Solid Copy.  We've rounded up digital copies of a bunch of old editions, and you can find them under Member Services > Solid Copy.

The club's weekly net will transition back to the W4RAT 146.88 MHz repeater effective Wednesday, October 5.  We appreciate the use of the Metropolitan Repeater Association's KG4MRA 145.43 MHz repeater while the club's radio systems were unavailable.

The RATS net is called each Wednesday night at 7:00 PM.

As of 11:30 am Wednesday, September 28, the W4RAT 146.88 and 442.55 MHz repeaters are back in service.  We appreciate the continued patience and support of our members and community during the past few months.  There may be some brief intermittent downtime on these repeaters over the next few weeks for maintenance.  The Repeater Status page is once again being maintained and will be updated with any outage information.