so ive been doing contests for a few years now, mostly single op single radio, and my rates are decent but i keep hitting this ceiling around 120-130 qso/hr on phone and maybe 80-90 on cw during the good runs. been reading a lot about SO2R and honestly it sounds like it could help but also sounds like a massive rabbit hole i might not come back from.

my current setup is a K3 and an Alpha 91b and i do alright with that but adding a second radio and figuring out all the antenna switching and interstation interference stuff feels like a project that could eat a whole winter. my station isnt exactly optimized for it either, i have a pair of 40m wires and a tribander at 55ft, not exactly a SO2R dream.

the thing is i watch the claimed scores from guys at my skill level who run SO2R and the difference is real, like sometimes 30-40% more qsos. but i also wonder how much of that is just them being better operators in general, not the second radio. does anyone actually track this stuff? like did you go SO2R and see a measurable rate improvement that you could clearly attribute to the second radio vs just getting more experience over time?

also whats the minimum viable SO2R setup, like can i get most of the benefit without building a full bandpass filter farm and replacing all my feedlines with hardline or whatever

honest answer is yeah it's a rabbit hole but a worthwhile one if contesting is your thing. I spent about two years messing around with SO2R before i felt like i was actually using it effectively rather than fighting it. the interstation interference thing is very real and it depends a lot on your antenna situation — your tribander and 40m wires might actually be okay depending on how they're oriented relative to each other.

the minimum viable setup question is a good one. a lot of guys start with just a second radio into a simple wire and use it mostly for S&P while they're running on the main radio. you dont need full two-radio transmitting capability right away, just having a second set of ears on another band while you hold a frequency is already a big deal. i used an old FT-1000D as my second radio for like three years before i bothered with any serious filtering, and yeah i had some interaction issues but nothing that killed the concept.

the rate improvement is real but your instinct about operator skill is also right. the guys posting huge SO2R numbers are usually also just really good at working splits and keeping a run going. hard to separate the variables. i'd say add maybe 15-20% to your expected rate once you're comfortable with it, not 40%.

the antenna spacing thing matters more than people admit when they first start reading about SO2R. i tried running my K3 and an IC-7300 together last CQWW and got away with it on 10 and 40 which are far enough apart that the filters in the rigs handled most of it, but 15 and 20 together was a mess, just full desense on the receive radio whenever i transmitted. ended up just using the second radio for 40 late at night basically.

if you want to do it properly the bandpass filter boxes from 4O3A or the homebrew stuff based on the W3NQN designs are kind of the real answer. its not glamorous advice but thats what it is. also worth looking at the N1MM SO2R documentation just to understand the software side before you commit, there's a bunch of keying and timing stuff that'll mess you up if you dont know its there.