so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and worked a ton of HF stuff, some 6m sporadic-e, even dabbled in meteor scatter on JT65B but EME has always been this kind of mythical thing to me. figured id finally try to get serious about it but honestly the more i read the more overwhelmed i get.

right now im thinking 2m EME as a starting point since thats where most of the activity seems to be and theres a lot more station density for initial contacts. i have a decent yagi situation i could build on — currently running a pair of M2 2M5WL for a terrestrial moonbounce setup and access to a legal limit amp (ACOM 1010) so the power side is probably okay. but from what i can tell the antenna gain is going to be my bottleneck, like way more so than power.

path loss on 2m EME is what, around 252 dB? i keep seeing people say you really want at least 4 yagis to have a reasonable shot at working other stations without them needing a giant array on their end too. is that actually true or can i squeak by with 2 long yagis and good digital modes? im running WSJT-X with JT65B capability already so the software side isnt totally foreign to me. mainly just wondering what the realistic minimum viable setup looks like these days with Q65 in the picture

yeah 252 dB one-way is pretty close, its actually more like 252.6 on a good day depending on perigee vs apogee distance which matters more than people realize — moon at perigee vs apogee is something like 2dB difference and that actually makes or breaks some marginal contacts.

two long yagis is workable honestly, especially with Q65. Q65-60A has changed the game for small stations, i know guys running single yagis making initials now which wouldve been unthinkable even 5 years ago. that said its still easier when youre not begging the other station to carry all the link budget. with your ACOM and 2 x 2M5WL youre probably looking at something like 13-14 dBd gain from the antenna side which is a bit on the low end but not hopeless. the amp putting out close to 1500W helps.

main thing people underestimate beyond gain is the feed system and coax losses. if youre losing 1.5dB in your feed before you even get to the yagi you're throwing away a significant chunk of your effective radiated power. low noise preamp right at the feedpoint is also critical, your system noise figure matters a lot on receive since the moon signal is buried way down in the noise. something like an SSB Electronics or a good homebrew unit with a quality ATF-54143 based design, get that coax noise figure down under 0.4dB if you can.

also make sure your tracking is solid. EME isnt like parking on a DX frequency, the moon moves fast enough that if your azimuth is off even a few degrees on a long yagi you're losing gain at the worst possible time

i did my first EME contact like two years ago with a single 9el yagi and 400W and honestly it was mostly luck and a very patient station in PA with a huge array lol. Q65 is the reason that was even possible. so yeah two decent yagis and legal limit you should be able to work stuff, just be realistic about who you can call — you'll need to target the big guns at first until you get some decodes and figure out where your weak points are in the system.

one thing nobody told me that i had to learn the hard way was doppler shift. on 2m its not huge but if your rig isnt being corrected for it your signals will drift across the Q65 passband during the contact especially near moonrise and moonset. WSJT-X handles some of this but worth understanding whats happening