so ive been doing Sweepstakes CW for the past few years as SO1R and honestly been pretty happy with it, typically finishing somewhere mid-pack in my section. but i keep reading about SO2R and watching the 3830 scores from guys who are clearly running two radios and the rate difference is just insane. like they'll have these huge multiplier hauls early and then just sustain a run rate that I can't match even on a good band opening.

my current setup is an IC-7300 which is great but obviously only one radio. i do have an old TS-590SG sitting here that i pulled from the shack rearrangement last spring and never put back into regular use. so the hardware question is somewhat answered but everything else feels like a giant unknown. bandpass filters, SO2R controllers, antenna switching, figuring out how to not key up on myself... i dont even know where to start honestly.

is there a reasonable entry point into this or is it one of those things where you either go all-in with the full microHAM setup and dedicated antennas or you're just spinning your wheels? genuinely curious if anyone has done a more budget/scrappy version of SO2R that actually worked during a phone or CW contest.

yeah so I went through exactly this like 3 years ago. the honest answer is that a scrappy SO2R setup CAN work but you will spend at least one contest troubleshooting RFI problems instead of actually contesting, so calibrate expectations accordingly.

the bandpass filters are not optional if your antennas are anywhere close together. I tried to skip that step with just some ferrites on the coax and it was a disaster — 40m was getting into everything on 20 and my audio was a mess. ended up grabbing a used set of Dunestar 600 filters off QRZ classifieds and that fixed like 90% of the issues. the other 10% was feedline routing and getting the rigs a bit further apart in the rack.

for the actual SO2R control, I started with just the N1MM SO2R basic stuff and manually handled the radio switching which is tedious but functional. the microHAM or YCCC SO2R box type stuff makes it way smoother but you can limp through a contest without it while you figure out if you actually like SO2R before spending the money. honestly the bigger skill issue is just training your brain to S&P on radio 2 while you're running on radio 1 — took me probably two or three contests before that stopped feeling completely overwhelming.

the 590SG and the 7300 are actually a decent pairing for this since they're both pretty well behaved receivers and the 590 has good roofing filters. one thing people don't talk about enough is the audio management side of it — running two radios means you need a way to monitor both without going insane, a lot of guys use the left/right stereo split in headphones with each radio on one ear which works surprisingly well once you get used to it.

also just mentally — SO2R in Sweepstakes specifically is interesting because you're balancing the run vs multiplier hunting differently than say in a DX contest. the sweep is worth a lot so having radio 2 parked on a band looking for needed sections while you run on radio 1 is where the real gain comes from in SS. its less about raw rate and more about never letting a rare section slip by because you were busy running.