The Richmond Amateur Telecommunications Society, club callsign W4RAT, is based in the Virginia capitol city of Richmond. RATS is a Central Virignia ARRL- and SERA-affiliated radio club with VHF and UHF repeaters in service. We hold monthly meetings, open to members and guests.

Our repeaters and IRLP Nodes are open to all amateur radio operators holding the appropriate license class to operate on 2 meters (146.88MHz -600KHz offset) and 70 centimeters (442.55MHz +5MHz offset). Both repeaters use full CTCSS encoding/decoding at 74.4Hz (formerly called PL). Full use of the autopatch and telemetry functions requires RATS membership. We are also adding APRS digipeaters around the Richmond metro area. More information on W4RAT APRS is here.

RATS was founded in 1972 to further the art and science of radio communications. We invite you to join us at our meetings, to utilize our repeaters, and to become part of our organization!

Special Olympics 2009 was fully staffed by amateur radio volunteers. Thanks to Joe Landers, KE4EUE, for leading this project.