North American QSO Party, CW

12-hour low-power North American party, 100 W maximum with no amplifiers. Multipliers count once per band, so moving multipliers between bands is central to strategy. Single ops may operate 10 of the 12 hours.

Rules at ncjweb.comThe rules are the sponsor's. This page holds the dates and the facts.

When it runs

Second full weekend of January, and First full weekend of August

1800Z Saturday → 0559Z Sunday

Times are UTC, as the sponsor states them.

Next runnings

1800Z Sat 9 Jan → 0559Z Sun 10 Jan · 11h 59m2027
in 100 days
1800Z Sat 7 Aug → 0559Z Sun 8 Aug · 11h 59m2027
in 310 days
1800Z Sat 8 Jan → 0559Z Sun 9 Jan · 11h 59m2028
in 464 days
1800Z Sat 5 Aug → 0559Z Sun 6 Aug · 11h 59m2028
in 674 days
1800Z Sat 13 Jan → 0559Z Sun 14 Jan · 11h 59m2029
in 835 days
1800Z Sat 4 Aug → 0559Z Sun 5 Aug · 11h 59m2029
in 1038 days

Operating

Modes: CW
Bands: 160m80m40m20m15m10m
Exchange: Name + state/province/country
Power categories: Low Power 100 W
Logs: Cabrillo
Who can enter: Anyone, anywhere.
NCJ rule 1: any amateur licensee may enter. Object is working North American stations.

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: Yes. The rule on this page was read off National Contest Journal (NCJ)'s own published rules. Link last confirmed 2026-08-11.
What the source says: NCJ rules: second full weekend in January; first full weekend in August. 1800-0559 UTC. Verified against NCJ's published Jan 10-11 2026 and Aug 1-2 2026.

Something wrong? How to report it — a link to the sponsor's own page is all it takes.

Take it with you

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Subscribe (iCal) carries this contest's runnings for the next twelve months as UTC instants and keeps them current. Apple Calendar, Outlook and Thunderbird take this address directly. Its identifiers are stable across deploys, so re-subscribing does not duplicate anything: https://contestclock.com/api/ics?id=naqp-cw

Google has no working one-click subscribe. Paste that address into Settings → Add calendar → From URL. Google then polls it on its own schedule, often 8–24 hours, and that cannot be forced — so use Add to Google Calendar above if you want the next running in your calendar now.