so ive been doing HF contesting for about 4 years now mostly single radio and last cycle i finally got a second radio set up properly with a bandpass filter setup between the two so the RFI situation is at least manageable. running an IC-7300 on run and an old FT-950 on S&P and i thought id just naturally get faster but honestly my rate has been pretty inconsistent and sometimes feels worse than when i was just working one radio hard.

i think the issue is im spending too much mental energy deciding when to switch over and by the time i do the frequency on the run radio has gone cold or i missed a multiplier on the other band. like the timing of when to break away from the run to go grab a mult is something i cant figure out. is there some rule of thumb people use or is it just something that clicks after enough contests? i did CQWW SSB last year and my score went up but i felt like i left a lot on the table.

also curious if people run different audio setups — right now ive got the run radio in my left ear and S&P in the right and its workable but maybe not ideal. any tips from people who've actually made SO2R click for them would be appreciated

the audio thing is personal but most serious SO2R ops end up going mono in one ear for the run radio and just use the other ear kind of passively for the S&P side. takes a while to get used to but your brain stops trying to process both as equal priority. you basically want the run station to be almost automatic so the cognitive load is on the second radio doing the searching.

as for when to break — there's no perfect rule but the general thing i've heard from guys way better at this than me is that you dont leave a hot run for anything less than a needed mult, and even then you gotta be quick. if you're running 120/hr you probably shouldnt be leaving at all, you let the S&P radio just sit on a frequency and snag stuff passively. its when the rate drops under like 80 or so that actively hunting on radio 2 starts to make more sense mathematically. honestly though the real thing is just doing it over and over. i ran like 6 or 7 full weekend contests before SO2R felt even a little natural and i still make dumb decisions mid-contest all the time

yeah the left ear right ear thing never worked for me either, i ended up getting a headset that lets me pan each radio independently in the mixing and just kind of nudge the S&P side down in volume so its there but not demanding attention. took a few tries to find the right balance.

one thing nobody told me when i started SO2R was how much the antenna switching matters almost as much as the radio switching. if your second radio is stuck on a compromised antenna because you didnt plan the switching matrix properly you're going to miss half the mults anyway. just something to think about if you havent already sorted that side of it