so ive been doing single op for years and finally got a second radio set up properly — K3 on run, FT-991A as a mult radio with a 2x4 bandpass filter setup between them. did my first real SO2R attempt last weekend during the CW sprint and honestly it was kind of a disaster but i could see flashes of why people do this.

my rate on the run radio kept getting wrecked because i was fumbling with the SO2R controller and losing my rhythm. probably spent more time managing the second radio than actually working anyone. ended up pulling it apart about 2 hours in and just going back to single radio where i actually know what im doing.

question for people who've done this a while — how long does it actually take before SO2R starts helping your rate instead of hurting it? i get the theory, find a mult on 15 while you're running on 20, quick QSY, back to run. but in practice i kept missing calls on the run station while i was tuning around on the second one. is this just a practice thing or do people actually run SO2R differently than i was trying to?

yeah it took me probably three or four serious contest weekends before it stopped being a net negative. the thing nobody tells you is that SO2R isn't really about doing two things at once, it's about knowing when NOT to touch the second radio. early on i was trying to spin the second dial constantly and missing S&P calls left and right. now i basically only go to the mult radio when my run rate drops below a certain threshold or i hear something specific on the second receiver that catches my ear.

the audio management is honestly the hardest part. i use headphones with stereo split so run is in left ear and mult radio is lower in the right, but it took forever to train my brain to parse two QSOs simultaneously without losing the thread on the run station. some guys use completely separate audio and just swap focus back and forth but i never got comfortable with that. also your bandpass filters — what are you running exactly, are they the W3NQN style or the Array Solutions ones? that matters a lot for how much bleed you're dealing with on receive.

honestly the sprint is probably the worst contest to learn SO2R on because the exchange is so fast and everybody's moving around so much. id try it first in something like SS or a DX contest where the run frequency is a bit more stable and you have more time between exchanges to actually look around on radio 2. in sprint you barely have time to breathe between contacts let alone manage a second vfo. dont get discouraged by one bad attempt with that particular contest format.