We summarize recent results from a long-term single-dish monitoring program of a sample of active binary stars at 5 GHz, carried out with the 32m radiotelescope of INAF Istituto di Radioastronomia at Noto. Even if the principal aim of this monitoring programm was to activate ad-hoc VLBI observations, once the onset of a strong radio flare had been detected, the collection of a quite large database has allowed us to study the variability of radio emission from active binaries on short as well as long timescales that contributes to our understanding of stellar coronae.