whoami

Hi, I'm Mike, also known online as bashNinja.

I'm a Utah-based amateur radio operator, cybersecurity professional, homelabber, maker, and community advocate. My interests sit right at the intersection of radio, networks, emergency communications, security, and “what happens if we wire all of this together and see what works?”

I'm much more likely to be found behind a keyboard, terminal, waterfall display, or packet capture than ragchewing on a microphone. In fact, I've never participated in a net or ham check-in yet. I enjoy the technical side of amateur radio: signal paths, networking, routing, antennas, software, automation, and resilient communications systems.

radio interests

I'm especially interested in VHF/UHF digital communications, including:

Freq51: Intermountain Mesh

A lot of my current radio energy goes into Freq51: Intermountain Mesh, a Utah-focused Meshtastic and off-grid communications community. The goal is to help build practical, approachable, community-owned mesh communications across the Intermountain West.

Freq51 is about more than just putting nodes on hills. I care about helping people understand how the system works, how to build useful nodes, how to deploy them responsibly, and how to make mesh radio actually useful for local communities.

Things I work on

I also run and maintain supporting infrastructure for the community: web tools, monitoring, APIs, dashboards, and services that make the mesh easier to understand and operate.

homelab & infrastructure

I have a fairly active homelab, mostly built around Proxmox, Linux, Docker, networking, and self-hosted services.

work

Professionally, I work in cybersecurity and security operations. My background includes detection, incident response, automation, threat analysis, and security operations leadership.

community

Community is a big part of why I enjoy this hobby.

I'm involved with 801 Labs (KK7ISG), the Salt Lake City hackerspace, and I care a lot about participating in spaces where people can learn, build, experiment, and share knowledge. I enjoy helping people get started, whether that's building their first Meshtastic node, understanding a new radio, troubleshooting a network issue, or learning how to think through a technical problem.

I like projects that bring people together: LAN parties, build nights, local radio experiments, security contests, workshops, and hands-on learning.

Outside the shack

When I'm not working on radios, servers, or security projects, I'm usually spending time with my wife and kids, working around our place in Utah, helping with the horses, building electronics, homelabbing, building miniatures, 3D printing, or playing games. I like hobbies where there is always another layer to learn, amateur radio fits that perfectly.

/now: usually experimenting with

contact

For me, amateur radio isn't just about making contacts. It's about learning how communication systems work, building things that help people, and creating local technical communities that are capable, curious, and generous with knowledge.

If you're in Utah and interested in Meshtastic, digital radio, AREDN, emergency communications, or just want to build weird and useful radio/network projects, I'm always happy to connect.