so ive been doing contests for maybe 4 years now, mostly CQWW and sweepstakes, running single op single radio and generally putting in a decent score but nothing spectacular. a buddy of mine keeps telling me to try SO2R and honestly ive been curious but also kind of skeptical that the complexity is worth it for someone who isnt seriously trying to place top 10 in the world or whatever

my current setup is an ic-7300 as the main rig and i have an old ft-950 collecting dust that i could theoretically press into service. the issue i keep running into is the bandpass filter situation — i know you basically cant run two radios without serious filtering or youre just going to have one desensing the other all day. i looked at the 4o3a stuff and the dx engineering filters and yeah the price adds up fast

what im really wondering is whether the rate improvement is actually noticeable at my skill level or if SO2R only really pays off when youre already fast enough that youre sitting idle waiting for answers and need something to do with that dead air. like is there a minimum rate where it starts making sense to bother

honest answer — at a casual pace SO2R is probably more distraction than help. the gains really do come from using that dead time between CQ replies to work a mult or a run on the second radio, but if you're not already running fast enough that you have consistent dead time, you end up just splitting your focus for no real gain and your run rate actually drops while you learn the workflow

that said the filtering thing is real and non-negotiable. i tried it with just a single low-pass on each radio years ago and it was a disaster. the 4o3a bandpass filters are worth it if you go this route but you also need to think about the antenna situation — two radios into the same antenna is just asking for pain, ideally you want separate antennas on different bands which naturally gives you some isolation before the filters even kick in

if i were you id pick one contest, maybe a shorter one like the sprint or even a state QSO party, and just try the two-radio setup with whatever filtering you can cobble together. worst case you learn what you need to fix, best case it clicks faster than you expected

the ft-950 and 7300 combo is actually not bad for this, ive seen worse. one thing people dont talk about enough is the logging software side — N1MM+ has SO2R support built in and getting that configured right before the contest is honestly half the battle. the radio focus switching, the audio routing, knowing which rig is transmitting at any given moment, that stuff will mess you up if you havent practiced it outside of a real contest

also worth mentioning that even if you dont do true SO2R you can get some of the benefit by just using the second radio for passive monitoring, like let it sit on 40 while youre running 20 and just keep an eye on the bandmap. not as efficient but way less stressful and no transmit intermod issues to deal with