so ive been running SO2R for maybe three years now, mostly on CW, and every time a sprint comes around im second guessing whether the second radio is actually helping my rate or just adding mental overhead that tanks my score anyway. during a regular 48 hour contest it makes total sense, you're running on one radio and S&P on the other and the multipliers kind of fall into your lap. but sprint is already so chaotic with the QSY rule that im not sure my brain can handle monitoring two bands simultaneously while also keeping track of who i just worked and figuring out where to move next.

last sprint i had the K3 on 40 and the 756 Pro on 80 and i think i spent more time futzing with the audio switching than actually making contacts. ended up with a decent score but honestly not sure the SO2R setup contributed much vs just hurt me. anyone actually running SO2R effectively in sprints or is this one of those cases where the juice aint worth the squeeze

yeah sprint SO2R is kind of its own beast. the QSY rule basically means you're constantly getting kicked off your run frequency anyway so the whole rhythm you'd normally build just doesnt exist. i ran SO2R in the NCJ sprint a few years back and came to pretty much the same conclusion you did — the second radio was mostly a distraction. what i found works better is using the second radio purely as a band scope, just listening, not transmitting. that way you can hear when 80 opens up or a big gun clears out a frequency without actually trying to coordinate two simultaneous QSOs. your brain isnt juggling two transmit paths and you still get some of the rate benefit from knowing where to jump next. probably not true SO2R but honestly in a 4 hour sprint i think its more effective than trying to go full two-radio mode

I don't do SO2R at all so take this for what its worth but from what I've read the guys who are really lethal in sprints are basically just running insane rates on a single radio with very deliberate S&P bursts when the run dries up. like the top scores arent necessarily SO2R guys, theyre just guys who know the bands cold and can work a pileup really fast. the mental overhead thing you mentioned is real — i've talked to ops who said switching to SO2R actually hurt their scores for a full season before they internalized it enough to see gains. if sprints are only a few hours long you might not have enough time in the contest to recoup the overhead cost of running two radios