So ive been doing SS phone and CW for a few years now, always single radio, and I keep reading about SO2R guys putting up these insane rates and I finally decided to try setting it up this year. Got a second rig (an IC-7300 to go alongside my 7610) and I'm using a basic antenna switch plus some bandpass filters I borrowed from a club buddy.

The problem is my brain just doesn't seem to work that way. Like I'll be running a frequency on 40 and trying to S&P on 15 and I miss exchanges on both because I'm basically half-listening to two things at once. I know the whole point is to keep your rate up while you're running but honestly I'm not sure if I'm gaining anything versus just running one radio clean.

Anyone else go through this learning curve and eventually get it to click, or is there some kind of mental trick I'm missing. I feel like the guys who are good at it have just done it so many times it becomes automatic but right now it feels like rubbing my head and patting my stomach at the same time.

yeah that rubbing your head thing is exactly what it feels like at first, you nailed it. took me probably 3 or 4 contests before it started feeling even slightly natural and honestly I still botch it when band conditions are chaotic and everyone's calling at once.

the thing that helped me most was being really strict about only using the second radio for S&P, never trying to run on both simultaneously until you're really comfortable. so your flow becomes: run on radio 1, hear a dupe or a lull, flip to radio 2, log a quick S&P contact, flip back. you're not really listening to both at the same time so much as switching attention fast. the interleaving gets tighter as you do it more.

also if you're not already using N1MM with proper SO2R keying setup, that helps a lot because the software handles a lot of the footswitch logic and you're not manually managing which radio is transmitting. that alone reduced a lot of my errors.

Honestly the bandpass filters are the most important piece and a lot of people underestimate how much bleedover between the two radios will mess with your head even if it doesn't blow anything up. If your 40m signal is getting into the 7300's front end while you're trying to copy on 15 you're fighting that the whole time and it's exhausting.

I run a 2-radio setup during CQWW and the rate difference is real but it took me a long time to get there. One thing I do that maybe sounds dumb but actually helped — I practiced outside of contests just doing SO2R with no pressure, like tuning around on a random evening just to get my hands used to the workflow without caring about score.