The National Contest Journal (also referred to by the acronym NCJ) is a bimonthly magazine published by the American Radio Relay League, with an independent volunteer editor.

NCJ publishes articles aimed at and written by amateur radio operators at all levels of contest still.

The magazine is published in English and draws its subscription base primarily from the United States of America and Canada.

In his editorial for volume 1, issue 1 (January/February, 1973), Olson described the motivational purpose of the publication: "We believe that a genuine desire exists for more information about Radio Contests.

"[2] Olson relied upon the National Traffic System to gather claimed scores in order to print tables of likely competition winners months before the official results were published by the contest sponsors.