In March 1987 the club was formed by Luke Calianno N2GDU, Dick Haungs W2UJR, Lou Esposito N2SFZ, Matt Gorski NS2M, and Al Petry KE2AJ. The club was formed to fill the need for an amateur radio club in the eastern suburbs of Buffalo including Lancaster, Depew, Clarence, West Seneca, Amherst, and Alden. Later in that month, during its inaugural meeting, the club had over twenty hams attend the meeting at the Lancaster School Building on Central Avenue. About a year later, the club moved its meeting location to the Aurora Street Middle School.
The Lancaster Amateur Radio Club sponsored its first hamfest in 1988 at Joseph Manor. Over the years, the hamfest grew forcing the club to move its location to several different sites including the Elks Club, Darien Center Fire Hall, Hearthstone Manor, Leonard VFW Post, Main-Transit Fire Hall, and the Ismalia Shriner’s Center in West Seneca. The first winter hamfest was held in 1998 at the Leonard VFW Post. We now hold two annual hamfests. Batavia hamfest – third Saturday of July and the Lancaster hamfest second Saturday of September . Hamfest Info
The two-meter repeater was originally housed at Dick W2UJR’s home QTH. It was eventually moved to its present location on Pavement Road. We currently have three operationg repeaters a two meter , a 440, and a 220 located at our club house on Pavement Rd. We also have repeaters in Batavia NY a 2 meter and a 440 .
The first clubhouse was located at the Boys and Girls Club on Broadway. The club eventually left this small, one room location because of the small space and inability to put up an any legitimate antennas. In 1994, Lucian Greco, Lancaster Town Supervisor at the time, agreed to let the club use a building at the Lancaster Town Center on Pavement Road. The club eventually moved to its present location on Pavement Road a few years later.
The Lancaster Amateur Radio Club has always been affiliated with the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), but in 2002 we became a special service club. On August 5, 2001, we hosted the Western New York ARRL Section Convention at the Main-Transit Fire Hall.
In 2007, the club added IRLP ( now echolink ) onto the repeater system. With this expanded capability, former club members who moved out of the area were able to catch-up on club events. In the fall of that year, a station from New Zealand called into our repeater because his eighteen-year-old granddaughter was a foreign exchange student in the area. As it turned out, she was a student at Williamsville South High School where club member Bill Freeman N4NJJ was a student.
During 2007-2008, the clubhouse underwent an immense restoration. Bob Delameter AA2ZW and Ed Klimaszewski AB2HW took point on this project. Dennis Paufler N2DJP and Jim Glor N8GXR contributed many new things for the club.
In 2018 the radio room was upgraded to a state of the art station. It includes three HF rigs with digital capabilities and separate logging computers. Also the room includes a fully functional ARES station with voice, packet and digital communications.