so ive been doing contests for maybe 4-5 years now, mostly single op single radio, and i keep reading about SO2R and how the top scores are basically impossible without it these days. been thinking about whether its worth setting up a second radio for the bigger contests like SS or cqww but honestly the more i read about it the more my head spins.

my current setup is a 7300 into a hexbeam at about 35 feet and i do okay, usually top quarter in my section but nowhere near the top. the rate question is what gets me — like during a slow period on 20m i know theres probably stuff happening on 15 but by the time i qsy and find a run frequency i've blown the multiplier hunting time. i get that SO2R is supposed to solve exactly this problem but the RFI issues between two radios in a small suburban lot seems like a nightmare.

anyone actually running SO2R in a compromised location or is it basically only feasible if you've got a big station with proper antenna separation? also curious how much of the rate improvement is real vs people just being better operators in general

the RFI thing is real and it took me probably two years of messing around to get it manageable. i'm on a 75x120 lot and running an IC-7610 as radio 1 and an old FT-1000MP as radio 2. what actually made the difference for me wasn't fancy filtering, it was getting the antennas as physically separated as i could and using good bandpass filters — i run the Array Solutions stuff and it helped a lot but its not cheap.

honest take though: if youre just starting to think about rate optimization, SO2R is probably not where i'd put energy first. learning to run a frequency efficiently, when to S&P vs when to hold a run, how to work a pileup fast — that stuff will get you more QSOs than a second radio if you haven't already drilled it. i spent a whole contest season just focusing on my CW speed and exchange timing before i touched the SO2R question and my score went up way more than i expected from that alone.

that said yeah the top guys are doing SO2R and if you want to compete at that level eventually you'll probably need it. just dont expect it to fix rate problems that are actually operator problems, if that makes sense

i tried SO2R for about one contest and gave up lol. maybe im just not wired for it but the cognitive load of managing two radios while trying to copy calls at speed was too much for me. went back to single radio and honestly my accuracy went way up.

the guys who are good at it seem to have a very specific mental workflow where the second radio is almost background noise until its not, hard to explain but its like they've trained themselves to partition their attention differently. i think some people can learn it and some just cant or dont want to and thats fine. not every contest op needs to be chasing the efficiency ceiling