so ive been doing single op contests for a few years now, mostly on HF, done a bunch of CQWWs and SS and a few sprints here and there. my rates on a good run are decent but i keep watching the claimed scores from the top SO2R guys and theres just no comparison. like the multiplier hunting they can do while keeping a run going on the other radio is just a completely different game.

problem is i dont even know where to start. ive got a second rig (an old IC-7300 sitting on the shelf) and my main is an IC-7610, so the radio side isnt the biggest issue i guess. but the antenna situation is going to be rough because i only have a tribander and a 40m dipole and from what i understand the filtering situation between two radios on different bands gets real messy real fast if they're not well separated. ive read about the 2-radio networked setups with band decoders and the relay-switched bandpass filters but man that seems like a whole project.

is the rate improvement actually noticeable for a mid-level contestor or is this more of a thing where you need to already be at a high rate to really benefit from it? i feel like if im sitting at 80-90 qsos/hr on a good hour, adding SO2R complexity might just introduce more problems than it solves. curious what people who have actually done it think, not just the theoretical argument for it

honestly the antenna isolation thing is what stops most people and its a legitimate concern, not just paranoia. if you run 100w on both rigs with only like 30dB of isolation between your tribander and that 40m dipole you are going to have a bad time. the rx on the listening radio will be totally wiped out. the 4O3A or Dunestar bandpass filters are kind of the standard fix but they are not cheap and you need a set for each radio so youre looking at real money before you even touch the software side.

that said -- for someone already doing 80-90/hr i think SO2R starts making a real difference. the biggest gain isnt even the mult hunting honestly, its the dead time. like when youre waiting for a pileup to clear or searching for your next CQ freq, that second radio is just working qsos quietly in the background. its the idle time where you bleed points and SO2R plugs that leak. took me probably two full contest seasons before i felt like i wasnt fighting the setup and could actually focus on operating rather than managing the technology

i tried to do SO2R on the cheap a couple years back with just a duplexer and no real filtering and yeah it was a disaster, basically unusable during high band condx when both rigs were trying to do something on 15 and 20. the intermod was just everywhere. ended up operating SO1R anyway because it was less frustrating lol

what software are you using btw? N1MM+ with the SO2R stuff set up right makes a huge difference because it handles the radio focus switching and the audio routing so your brain isnt trying to context switch manually between two rigs. thats almost more important than the hardware imo, having the logging software actually aware of what both radios are doing. without that you're just kind of manually juggling two radios which isnt really SO2R, its just chaos