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:
- 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…
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- The Chelegance MC-750 comes packed in a handy carrying bag for easy transport and to keep things organized. Watch a review of the MC-750 here. (Image/DX Engineering)
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