so ive been doing contests for a few years now mostly single op single radio and i keep reading about SO2R and how much it helps your rate but honestly every time i try to wrap my head around it i feel like the cognitive load would just kill me. like right now i can hold a run frequency on 20m and S&P on 15 at the same time mentally but actually operating two radios simultaneously with two antennas and keeping both audio streams straight seems like a whole different animal.

my current setup is a K3 and i have an old FT-950 sitting in the corner that i barely use anymore. antenna wise i have a 2el yagi for 20/15/10 and a dipole for 40/80. wondering if its even worth trying to set up a basic SO2R with that or if the antenna isolation issues are gonna make it more trouble than its worth. i know you need bandpass filters or at least some kind of filtering between the two radios or you'll just blow up your receiver front end on the second radio.

also curious what people do for rate optimization when they're running — like when do you decide to abandon a run frequency and go S&P, and how do you keep your multiplier count from getting too thin when you're locked into a good rate. feels like there's always a tradeoff and i never quite know when to switch modes mid contest.

honest answer: SO2R is absolutely worth it even for mid-tier contest operation but the learning curve is real and you kind of have to accept you'll have a few contests where your score is actually worse while you're getting used to it. the cognitive thing you mentioned is exactly right — the hard part isnt the hardware, its training your brain to manage two QSOs almost simultaneously without your CW or voice going to mush on the run radio while you're tuning around on the second one.

for your setup the K3 and FT-950 combo could work but you'll want at minimum some 4O3A or Array Solutions bandpass filters between them, or even the cheaper ICE filters if you're on a budget. with your yagi and dipole you might get away with it depending on how the antennas are physically situated — if they're close together on the same support structure you'll have a bad time. biggest thing i'd say is start by just using the second radio to listen on another band while you run on the main one. dont even try to transmit on both at first. just get used to having two audio feeds and logging from two bands. that alone will improve your score.

on the run vs S&P question — i generally give a run frequency up when my rate drops below like 60-70 QSOs per hour for more than 5 minutes during a prime operating window. during off hours obviously you tolerate lower rates longer. mults are the tricky part, yeah. i keep a separate window showing which mults i still need and if i spot something rare on the second radio while im running ill work it quick and come back. you lose maybe 30 seconds off your run but a new mult is worth it almost every time in most scoring formulas.

the antenna isolation thing will bite you if you dont plan it out. i tried a ghetto SO2R setup a while back without filters and yeah, totally stomped my own S-meter on the second rig every time i keyed up. not fun. bandpass filters arent optional if both radios are anywhere near each other frequency wise.

one thing nobody really talks about enough is the logging software side of it — N1MM+ handles SO2R pretty well with the right configuration but you gotta set it up properly or it'll just log everything to the wrong radio and your dupe checking gets all confused. spent like two hours before a contest once figuring out why my second radio entries weren't showing up right. also if you're doing phone contesting and not CW the SO2R thing is even harder imo because you can't just let a macro handle your run transmission while you tune around, you actually have to talk and that kind of splits your attention in a messy way.