so ive been running single op assisted for the past few sweepstakes and keep seeing guys in the top 10 claiming SO2R and honestly wondering if its worth trying to set that up for my station. right now im running an IC-7300 into a trapped vertical for 40/80 and a yagi up at 45ft for 15/20/10. not exactly a killer setup but its what i have.

the rate thing is what gets me — i feel like i spend so much time hunting for mults on one band that my run frequency goes dead and then i lose the run anyway. like last november i had a solid 20m run going for maybe 45 minutes and then chased a couple section mults on 40 and when i came back my frequency was gone and i spent 20 mins finding a new one. cost me probably 30-40 Qs easy.

would a second radio even help in that scenario or is the issue just operator discipline? i genuinely cant tell if my problem is the setup or just me being impatient. running QRP isnt an option im already at 100w and dont have an amp yet.

honestly the frequency issue you described is 100% operator discipline, SO2R wouldnt have saved you there. like if youre leaving a run frequency for 20 minutes chasing mults thats just... thats a rate killer regardless of how many radios you have. the whole point of SO2R is you keep one radio locked on your run freq and use the second radio to work mults during your QSB gaps and turnaround time. you never actually leave the run.

that said setting up SO2R properly is a real project. the RF isolation between the two radios is the thing that bites everyone. i blew a front end on my old FT-1000MP because i thought a bandpass filter was enough and it wasnt, needed proper antenna switching interlock too. if youre on a trapped vertical for one band and the yagi for another you might actually have decent isolation already just by virtue of the antennas being on different bands but youd want to measure it.

for sweepstakes specifically at 100w SO2R probably adds maybe 10-15% to your score if youre disciplined. the bigger gains are usually just from knowing when to run vs S&P and keeping your CQ rate fast. whats your exchange time averaging right now?

yeah what he said about the isolation is no joke. i tried to half-ass a SO2R setup a couple years ago with just a switch and thought id be fine because i was on different bands. got away with it for maybe an hour before something started acting weird on the second radio. never tracked down exactly what happened but it was not a fun afternoon.

for what its worth if youre losing your run frequency to other stations that fast on 20m during SS, might also just be a power thing combined with where youre pointing. 100w into a yagi at 45ft is decent but if youre not doing periodic CQs to hold the freq while youre listening on the second radio you'll lose it. some guys set their logging software to send a CQ like every 30-40 seconds automatically while theyre working a station on radio 2. N1MM can do this i think, havent messed with it myself much.