The Buckeye Belles
1996 November Sweepstakes activities

The November Sweepstakes was a lot of fun for the Belles. We entered the contest in order to "free" our club president. Read on as we take you behind the scenes starting with the kidnapping of our President and the Vice President rallying the Belles to free her and lastly, the Northern Ohio Buckeye Belles entry into the 1996 November Sweepstakes and their results.

The Kidnapping of the President of the Buckeye Belles



(Below is a copy of the letter that the Buckeye Belle Vice President, Nancy KC4IYD sent to the Belle membership to inform them of the "kidnapping" of the Buckeye Belle President, Terri WD8LQH, shown here in a photo taken as she is being kidnapped).


Ladies, there is treachery afoot. The president of the Buckeye Belles has been kidnapped by a Columbus gang called "The Bean Counters" with the ring leader being Steve - N8CPA. I recently received a radiogram shown below from them:

Radiogram picture The message read as follows: "Test message X We have Terri WD8LQH X If your Buckeye Belles can get 10,000 points in the Nov. Sweepstakes we will return your president to your custody. Bean Counters."

As a result of this, I am calling on all Buckeye Belles and YL operators but especially to all the Northern Ohio YLs to help free our president.Otherwise, I would have to become president and I don't want that to happen because I am already president of one amateur radio club (NASA Lewis) and vice president of 3 others (including the Buckeye Belles.) I have already sent a response to the Bean Counters informing them that we will meet their challenge. To do this, I will be making my home and station available to any YL who wants to stop by to operate, log, ragchew, bring some goodies and/or generally help us get the 10,000 points during the November Sweepstakes. Several YLs have already expressed interest and we plan to operate the full 24 hours starting at 4pm Saturday, November 16th through Sunday 4pm, November 17th. We will be using the Buckeye Belle club call W8MBI and will be calling on frequencies ending in 33 and 76 for the first 15 minutes of every hour, on the hour and then moving around to other frequencies to make more contacts. We will probably start operating on 20m and as the evening approaches, we will move to 40m and then 80m. If anyone wants to make sure they make a contact with W8MBI for the Buckeye Belle certificate (remember W8MBI is worth 2 contacts), let me know.

There will be plenty of pictures taken as well as an article written for QST to put under the soapbox section of the contest results. We plan to include the names of everyone who helped us in any way. Therefore, I hope to either see you on the 16th or to contact you on the air during the November Sweepstakes. If you have any questions, email at kc4iyd@geocities.com

33 de kc4iyd, Nancy

Now that you've read the background behind the Belles entering the November SS, read on to find out how we did in the November SS and if we got our President freed.

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Last Updated December 2, 1997 by kc4iyd@geocities.com