Many users and listeners to W8WKY 147.39 MHz have heard the Boredom Breaker Net between 1p and 3p. John Southard W2JLS provided an article from the Hamsomniacs about the origins of their group and their net.
Background of the Hamsomniacs by Allen KI5DAY
As far as the origins of the “Hamsomniacs,” one could say it was by complete chance and circumstance that the group ever got started. When I first got on the air in March of 2020, I had been listening for some time to the local Tulsa Area Super-link repeater 443.850 prior to me getting on the air. After I got my license, I was able start talking to a few people I had heard on the link before.
Shannon – KC5RBG
Mitch – KC5PWB (hosting us at his house)
Noelle – KI5KFQ (Jerus’ daughter, got her ticket at 8)
Allen – KI5DAY
Jerus – AI5Q
Bob – KF5EQX
I was and currently still working the evening shift, so I began to call out after 9 pm or later to talk to people on the link. As I began to know people there were three of us that began talking regularly on the link: KI5JHQ (JD in Morris, OK), KI5IDK (Barry in Stillwater), and myself KI5DAY (Allen in Sperry, OK). Like me, these guys liked staying on the air late into the night and often into the morning hours. Little by little, more and more people that had been listening to us began joining the round table. At that point the group was getting larger by the week so I began to do a round table and being the impromptu unofficial net controller.
We never became an official net; we enjoyed the rag chew round table sessions and never pursued permission for an official net from the repeater owners. All Hams were welcome and we did take breaks to invite anyone listening to join in, and they came from everywhere; the Superlink spanned over 17 connected repeaters. There were times where there would be a few of us in the evenings, and other times where it would be 15 or more in the round table. Needless to say, it was surprising how many people liked talking late in the evening and beyond midnight most nights. We had truck drivers passing through that would check in, people all over the Super-link system calling in from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas. Usually there would be new hams coming in like me just looking to get on the air, and the Super-link was a great place to start.
There was never a plan for this to be an ongoing round table or net, but the nightly meeting of the “Hamsomniacs” kept going for quite some time close to a year on the Super-link. We eventually relinquished the nightly meetings on the Super-link and found its way over to the All-star Network via nodes, Echolink and Fusion. To this day the group has remained intact with a lot of the original Hams moving over to the digital Oklahoma “Hamsomniacs” on node 530123, which we call the J-link.