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I spent a week this July at the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC), one of the biggest gatherings of the world’s absolute best contesters. Everyone there had put in an immense amount of time and effort to qualify as a competitor or be a referee. It was truly the textbook definition of “a roomful of experts.” Being there as a young ham brought on a number of emotions, ranging from feeling intimidated by the group to feeling like an integral part it.

In the end, the experience was very positive.

Being in a roomful of experts as a young ham is a strange combination of excitement and the internally aching “please don’t call on me” feeling. You realize that you have access to troves of knowledge but aren’t quite sure yet how to acquire it without asking a question that you worry might make you look dumb—but you still want to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Feeling this slight anxiety of not wanting to look like you don’t belong or not wanting to ask the wrong question doesn’t mean you’re not in the right place. It just means that you’re new (at least newer) to a group, and that feeling is usually temporary.

I have a few tips for young hams who feel like they’re struggling to take advantage of this opportunity, since I’ve experienced it many times.

• Aways ask the questions that come to your mind. You may feel like it’s a “dumb” question, but that doesn’t mean it is. Most of the time, experts won’t judge you for wanting to learn more about something that they’re passionate about—they just like sharing what they know and have learned.
• Find a group of people who are in the same (or at least similar) position as you—young hams getting involved with the hobby who are still not experts. You’ll be able to learn together and support each other through the ups and downs of the process.
• Let yourself be inspired by the experts around you rather than comparing yourself to them. Use their knowledge and tips to motivate yourself to improve your skills rather than comparing yourself to them and letting yourself feel like you’re behind. There is no “copy and paste” timeline for getting your license, upgrading, or getting more involved with a specific part of the hobby. Going at your own pace and enjoying the process is more important than being the best at what you’re doing.

A big part of amateur radio for many young hams is ending up in rooms you don’t feel 100% qualified to be in. The trick is to remind yourself that you got there somehow, and that you don’t need to be the best in the room to deserve to be there. When you’re surrounded by the experts of the hobby, it can feel quite intimidating if you’re not performing at the same level, but you should consider how long you’ve been involved in amateur radio compared to those with many more years of experience.

Most of us remember our first time trying to run a pileup: sitting there nervously fumbling callsigns, mishearing things, and frantically trying to log all of the contacts. But we tend to forget that this is how all of us started, no matter how skilled we are now. When we surround ourselves with experts, we tend to raise our expectations but forget how far we’ve already come toward reaching them.

Here’s my best advice to young hams who feel like perhaps they haven’t worked hard enough on something or done enough to improve their skills: Remember how far you’ve come from being a new ham with only a Technician license and HT in hand.

The post How It Feels to Be a Young Ham in a Roomful of Experts appeared first on OnAllBands.

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We hope you had an opportunity to stop by the Chelegance booth (they were set up in the DX Engineering portable ops area) at Dayton Hamvention® 2026. The company specializes in a diverse selection of amateur radio gear, including easy-to-deploy portable antennas, CW keys and paddles, transceiver cases, Vector Network Analyzers (VNA), dummy loads, and more.

Here’s a sampling of what Chelegance had on display in Xenia this May:

• Handheld Vector Network Analyzer, 1 MHz to 6.3 GHz
• MC-750 40-6M Portable Vertical Antenna

• Portable Telescoping Antenna Tripod
• JDP-1730 DC Power Distribution Panel (below)

• JKEY-25 Portable Straight Key

• JBALUN-915 1:1 Feedline Choke
• MC-599 40-6M Portable Rigid V Rotatable Dipole (Watch a review of the MC-599 here.)
• JKEY-8 CW Key Connection Box

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OnAllBands had an opportunity to ask BD7LLY about the company and the growing popularity of its antenna designs:

Could you talk about what you look for when developing an antenna?

“Personally, I like POTA a lot. When I got started, we formed a group of hobbyists and founded Chelegance. We started by building the kinds of things that we like. You can see the MC-750 is one of our earliest products. That’s something we really like to use ourselves.”

“And later we came out with other portable solutions like different dipoles. We wanted to bring more innovative and higher quality products from China by leveraging the resources in China manufacturing. Then we brought in the Morse keys, the practice oscillator, antenna tuners, inline RF chokes, and things like that.”

Are you surprised with all positive feedback you’ve had on your products?

“Actually, yes. I was very surprised. At the beginning, we were just trying to make something to benefit ourselves. We also wanted to make these things available to others. We didn’t expect that so many people also liked the same ideas.”

One of those ideas is having markings on the whip to indicate approximate extended lengths per band.

Before, we always had to go back and forth between radios and antenna analyzers to switch the bands and do adjustments. So, we figured out a clever way to make it easy when you do POTA and want to change the different bands.”

Another aspect of your antennas is their portability. Can you talk about that?

“When it comes to portability, we’re looking at how big the size is, what is the weight of it, and how do you carry it. We take those things into consideration. At the same time, we cannot shrink the quality of the product. You know, for a lot of antennas, you can go with portability, but you compromise the size of the antenna. It works sometimes, but the performance may be compromised. We always want to bring solutions so you can still take advantage of the full size of the antenna. At the same time, we ask how we can design it to make it better, so it’s easier to take to the field.”

What are your plans for the future?

“When we are looking at our product roadmap, we listen to customers, especially those from DX Engineering. I always hear your feedback about what kind of things U.S. customers want in the market. We are looking for options for how we can make things built on top of some existing products—how to make them better and more affordable to the market.

“DX Engineering is one of our earliest relationships. They helped Chelegance expand our market a lot in the early days, and they’re playing a very important role in representing us to serve our U.S. customers. We really appreciate that. You guys have a very good service, and the customers are happy that we have a relationship with DX Engineering.”

Check out the full lineup of Chelegance products at DX Engineering.

The post Catching Up with Chelegance at Dayton Hamvention® 2026 appeared first on OnAllBands.

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Today, OnAllBands is looking at two archipelagic DXCC entities roughly 8,400 miles apart:

The Republic of Trinidad & Tobago is a country in the southern Caribbean made up of the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago and several smaller islets. It’s scheduled to be on the air until Aug. 9 thanks to the 9Y4 activation by 8P6PE as 9Y4/8P6PE from Chaguanas on Trinidad. The HF operation will include several POTA sites. Equipment being used include a Yaesu FT-891 and Chameleon telescopic whips.

Trinidad (1,850 square miles, population 1.5 million) and Tobago (116 square miles, population 60,800) sit about seven miles north to northeast off the coast of Venezuela. With a population of more than 100,000, Chaguanas is the island group’s largest municipality.

Tobago is home to the Main Ridge Forest Reserve, the oldest legally protected rainforest in the world. British colonial administrators declared it a Crown Reserve in 1776 to preserve rainfall and protect agricultural lands. Take a few moments to watch this insightful video below about the Main Ridge Forest Reserve:

Tuvalu is a country in the Polynesian subregion of Oceana in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. It comprises three reef islands and six atolls. The T2JK DXpedition by JK1JXZ from Funafuti is on 80-6M. It’s scheduled to run until Aug. 7 but may be extended to Aug. 14. The T22TT DXpedition by the Rebel DX Group from Tuvalu wrapped up in July.

Funafuti, a coral atoll made up of 30 islets and a turquoise lagoon, is the capital of Tuvalu and home to 60% of the nation’s population (around 6,300 out of 11,500). This ranks Tuvalu as the second least populous sovereign country in the world behind Vatican City. 

Tuvalu has an average elevation of just two meters (six feet) above sea level—the reason scientists have made Tuvalu a point of discussion regarding climate change and rising sea levels. By contrast, Trinidad & Tobago is approximately 83 meters (272 feet) above sea level.

An article on the United Nation’s website, “Earth Day: The Battle to Save a Drowning Pacific Island Nation” noted that in 2025, due to concerns about the future of the islands, “more than 90 percent of Tuvaluans applied for a visa scheme to obtain residency or citizenship in Australia.” In 2022, Tuvalu’s government created the first “digital nation” in the metaverse “to preserve its statehood and culture if its physical territory disappears.” Scientists predict Tuvalu could become uninhabitable in the next 50 to 100 years.

QSL Cards

The active hams at DX Engineering have had great success contacting these entities over the years (a good reason to contact them for help with your gear if you’d like to do the same). Here are a few QSL cards from their collections.

Scott, N3RA, DX Engineering sales manager, contacted 9Y4D in Trinidad on FT8:

Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, produced these cards from his collection:

Here are QSL cards from Wayne, K8FF, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist:

Visit DXEngineering.com for everything you need to upgrade your station to make sure you’re ready to add an ATNO QSL card to your collection.

You’ll find transceivers, antennas; a wide selection of amplifiers from ACOM, OM Power, Icom, and others; CW keys and paddles; headsets and speakers; and much more.

Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!

The post It’s All in the Cards! QSL Cards from Trinidad & Tobago and Tuvalu appeared first on OnAllBands.

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