so ive been doing contests pretty seriously for the past couple years, mostly single op single radio, and im consistently pulling decent rates on CW but i keep hitting this wall where i feel like im just sitting there waiting during the slow periods and watching the clock. a buddy of mine keeps telling me to get into SO2R and honestly ive been curious for a while but every time i start looking into it the rabbit hole gets deep fast.

right now running a k3 into a pair of tribanders stacked at 45 and 75 feet, so the antenna situation isnt terrible, but adding a whole second radio setup with the keying and audio switching and all that seems like a lot of pain for maybe a few hundred extra qsos. or maybe im underselling it. does the rate difference actually show up that much if youre not already in the top 10 percent of operators skill wise? feels like my rate problems are more about operating technique than radio count

also wondering if anyone has opinions on the SO2R vs just really optimizing the single radio strategy, like aggressive S&P mixed with running, knowing when to give up a frequency and go hunt instead. i feel like theres still a lot of room there i havent exploited yet

honestly for where you're at i'd hold off on SO2R for now, not because it's not worth it eventually but because the cognitive load is real and if your single radio technique isnt already pretty dialed in you'll just end up doing two things mediocrely instead of one thing well. the rate improvement is legit when it clicks but ive seen guys jump into it and their scores actually drop the first couple seasons because theyre fighting the setup instead of operating.

the thing that made the biggest difference for me before i went SO2R was getting really disciplined about when to switch modes, like i used to run until the rate dropped below like 60/hr and then finally go S&P but i was being too conservative. started setting a harder threshold and actually tracking it with a rate window in n1mm and that alone bumped my scores noticeably. also band change timing in a multi-band contest is huge and most people just wing it based on feel when you should really know your propagation well enough to have a rough plan going in

the stacked tribanders you already have are honestly more valuable than a second radio in my opinion. a lot of SO2R guys are running that second radio into a wire or a modest antenna on a different band and yeah it helps with multipliers but you're already in good shape antenna wise. i'd spend some time just really learning to squeeze the rate on one radio before complicating everything.

that said the SO2R interstation interference problem is what gets people, not the operating strategy part. running two radios close together in frequency is a pain even with good filtering and you'll spend a lot of time on the bandpass filter situation. not trying to discourage just saying go in with eyes open on the RF management side of it