It’s always worth entering a contest!
Imagine your correspondent’s surprise when he received a large A4 size letter postmarked from the USA recently!
Not expecting anything from “across the pond”, it was opened with a mixture of anticipation and wonderment. It turned out to be a certificate for a placing in the 2011 CQ Worldwide Contest for CW.
Now this was a surprise! I had forgotten entering this event, probably as I only operated for a short time and made just 19 contacts on just one band, 80 metres. It turned out that I had won 1st place in England in the Low Power section for a Single Operator on 80 metres. OK, so I was about 4th from the bottom in the world, but as no-one else from England had bothered to enter that section, I won it! Rather a nice piece of wallpaper for the radio room, methinks!
See, it’s always worth submitting an entry to a contest. You never know what can happen!