so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF DX, some VHF contesting here and there, but EME has always been this thing in the back of my mind that seemed completely out of reach. lately ive been reading more about it and with JT65 and the weak signal stuff it seems like maybe its not as insane as it used to be. i mean people are doing it on 2m with a single yagi now right? at least thats what someone told me at a club meeting.

my main question is about the antenna. i have about half an acre and could probably put up something decent but im not sure what the minimum viable setup looks like for actually making contacts vs just hearing signals. i keep seeing people talk about 4 yagis or 8 yagis in arrays but then others say they worked the moon with a single long yagi and a good preamp. whats realistic for a first attempt? running an IC-9700 and have a decent station otherwise, shack is about 100 feet from where the antenna would go so coax loss is a factor too.

also is there a good time of year when the moon is in better geometry for north america or does it not really matter that much

yeah single yagi is doable on 2m EME, not gonna lie to you though it limits who you can work considerably. you're basically going to be working the big guns — stations with large arrays — because they have enough eirp to close the link on their end even if you cant quite hear them back. that said ive seen people make legitimate two-way contacts with a single M2 2M9SSB or similar and a good mast mounted preamp, something like an SSB Electronics or a Minikits unit with a really low noise figure, like sub 0.5dB ideally.

the coax run matters a lot, 100 feet on 2m you're going to want LMR-400 at minimum, honestly heliax if you can swing it. any loss between the antenna and that preamp is basically murder because you're already at the ragged edge of what's detectable. i'd get the preamp as close to the feedpoint as you can, relay switched, and then you can use cheaper coax for the run back to the shack since the signal is amplified at that point.

moon geometry — yeah it matters more than people think for your specific location. when the moon is at higher elevation you get less ground noise and the path loss is the same but your antenna is looking through less atmosphere. wsjt-x has a built in moon tracking display, just watch it for a few weeks and you'll get a feel for when your window is. also coordinate with the guys on the ON4KST chat, thats where basically all the 2m EME activity gets set up these days.

IC-9700 is a solid starting point for this, i use one myself. one thing nobody told me when i started was how important it is to get your rover or azimuth/elevation rotor situation sorted before you worry too much about yagi count. i wasted like two months with a decent antenna that i couldnt actually point accurately enough and kept missing contacts because i was a few degrees off when the moon was low on the horizon and moving fast.

theres a guy in my region who did first light with literally one 9el yagi and a preamp, worked a couple stations in europe. took him weeks of trying but it happened. so yeah its possible. just set your expectations right, you're not going to be racking up contacts like on FT8 on 40m, each one is kind of an event