I’m Mike, and I live in Middle Tennessee. Welcome to my little slice of the web! These days, I’m a Unix/Linux system admin by trade (Red Hat Certified). I mostly work with Red Hat systems at work, and at home I’m a Linux Mint user for my daily driven machines. Though, I think I’ve tried just about every distro out there at some point. I also run a home server for media and other projects. It runs Rocky Linux, a free clone of Red Hat, and I use KVM for spinning up virtual machines, as well as Docker for some projects. I’m constantly tinkering with some new project, which is how this website came to be. I decided that I wanted to embrace the personal nature of websites from the “good old days”. A simple personal blog. Just a place for me to be myself, and for others to stumble across. If you’ve done something similar, I’d love for you to send me a link.
I became a ham radio operator when I got my Technician license in the early 2000s. I upgraded to General in 2020, because I wanted to find out what the HF folks were doing. I immediately became interested in SOTA (Summits on the Air), but sadly, the Mid-TN area is lacking summits of the required height. When I found out about a similar program called POTA (Parks on the Air), I was thrilled. I currently run a Yaesu FT-891 and an inverted-vee dipole (usually on 40 meters) while portable. I use a Jackite fiberglass mast to get the peak of the dipole about 25 feet off the ground. This station is powered by a Bioenno 12AH LiFePO4 battery and I have a folding 40W solar panel to keep it charged. Most of my time is spent wondering when I can get back outside and go camping. Setting up a station near a campfire and making friendly contacts is a favorite leisure activity of mine. I was gifted a straight key, and have successfully made a few contacts with it. My first CW contact was with an operator named Larry in TX. He was so kind and patient while I tried my best to send and receive at somewhere near 5WPM.
I enjoy sending and receiving old school paper QSL cards. When I first started on HF, I got an unexpected barrage of QSL cards after my first POTA activation. I had heard about the practice of hams exchanging postcards, but it never occurred to me that I would get them. I quickly designed my own and started responding. I value all of them, but I really enjoy the ones with a personal touch, or a little note that goes beyond the “required” content. I also rent a PO Box at a quaint nearby post office, so I even enjoy the journey to check for any new arrivals.
My other main hobby, as you might have guessed, is motorcycling. I have a 2007 Kawasaki KLR650, which goes by the name ‘Kyle’. It is a dual-sport style bike, and it’s equally UN-comfortable to ride for long distances on the highway and the really tricky off-road bits. However, Kyle excels in environments like county backroads, gravelly forest service roads, and not-too-rutty logging trails. In my area, there are numerous county roads which are less than maintained, and they feel just like some of the USFS roads in the National Forests. I enjoy plotting new routes and exploring this beautiful area. Kyle has luggage cases, and can carry everything needed for a weekend camping getaway. Some of my favorite places to camp are Franklin-Marion State Forest, Natchez Trace State Forest, and Cherokee National Forest. If you know of other good places to ride or camp around the Middle Tennessee area, shoot me a message.
I like sharing things I’ve learned or enjoyed with others, and hope to make some new friends while doing that. I’d love to hear from you, especially if any of this brought a smile to your face.