Biography

I am Ben - KU0HN. I’ve been a ham since 2016, but interested in radio for much longer. When I was a kid I loved to mess with toy walkie-talkies and try to extend the range with ad-hoc antenna extensions and other “experimental” ideas. My first experience with ham radio was seeing my uncle’s ham shack as a kid. He lived in New York and I was in Wisconsin so I didn’t have many opportunities to spend time there, but iI found it impressive and it planted the seed for getting my license. In college in the mid 2000s I built my first proper antennas for long-range wifi to try to get internet service faster than 56k in my rural area (In 2023 you can still only get 3mbps there.)

Professionally, since college, I have worked in IT. I spent many years as a network engineer focusing on wireless. When I finally put forth the effort to get my ticket, I realized it complimented my profession very well. I have since moved in to info sec, which, in the corporate world doesn’t involve radio too much. SDRs do fit nicely in the InfSec space though.

I’ve been told I can be pretty opinionated. I have no time for proprietary nonsense in ham radio, on the computer, or anywhere else. I like knowing how things work. It makes me a better radio operator/nerd/mechanic/whatever so whenever I find deliberate obfuscation I’m irritated immediately.

When I’m not working I’m usually spending time with my wife and 3 daughters. In summer time we might be found on a sandbar on the Mississippi somewhere, or on the boat. The rest of the year, there’s always something going on. If I’m not on the air for a few weeks at a time that’s why. Anyway, that’s me in a nut shell. 73 de KU0HN

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Shack:
IC-7300, Heathkit SB-220, and LDG 1000ATProII for HF, IC-9700 and RF Concepts 2-417 for U/VHF.

Packet Node:
Xiegu G90 on HF, Kenwood TK-790 VHF Packet, Kenwood TK-790 for experimenting with other modes (M17, VARA FM, etc...). Node is KU0HN-7, Chat is KU0HN-11 and BBS is KU0HN-1.

Portable:
Xiegu x6100 running Linux from the SD Card for digital, or booting from internal flash for SSB. Wolf River Coils TIA Platinum vertical or a dipole for an antenna.

MMDVM:
MD-9600 running OpenGD77 in hotspot mode at 25w. Antenna at 30ft. DMR, C4FM, and POCSAG modes are enabled.

Antennas: MA5B 10, 12, 15, 17, and 20M beam, Cushcraft 10el 2m beam, M2 432-9WL 70cm beam, Cushcraft 2el 6m beam, 10-80m trap dipole all at 50-60ft. 20-40m trap dipole for packet at 30ft, Cushcraft 2m Boomer 4el beam for packet on 2m, and Diamond X200A shared between the experimental radio on the packet node and the MMDVM hotspot.