so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and ive always thought EME looked insane but also kind of impossible for a normal person. lately though ive been reading more about it and it seems like with JT65 and the digital modes it's actually become a lot more doable than the old days when you needed a massive array and a kilowatt just to hear anything.

my current setup is a 15 element yagi on 2m and a TS-590 with a 100 watt amp, roughly 500w at the feedpoint after losses i think. been doing some tropo and sporadic e with it but thats obviously a completely different thing. is that even close to enough to try EME seriously or am i wasting my time pointing at the moon with that. i keep seeing people talk about EMD dish setups and these huge H-frame yagi arrays and it starts sounding very expensive very fast.

also the elevation rotor thing — my current setup doesnt have elevation control, just azimuth. i assume i basically need to add that before anything else? or can you cheat with horizontal-only tracking and just pick windows when the moon is at a workable elevation angle naturally?

you can absolutely work EME with what you have, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. 500w and a 15 el yagi is genuinely enough to get on the scoreboard with JT65B, people have done it with less. the mode basically brought EME down to the level of a halfway decent 2m station. you wont be breaking any records but you'll make contacts.

the elevation rotor thing is real though. technically you can do what's called horizon-to-horizon tracking but you're really limiting your windows, maybe 20-30 minutes of usable time when the moon is crossing at low elevations. for serious operation you want full az/el. G-5500 combo is the goto for a lot of guys at this level, nothing fancy but it works. pair it with something like Orbitron or MacDoppler for tracking and youre basically set on that side.

biggest thing people underestimate is the preamp. a good low noise preamp at the feedpoint makes more difference than you'd expect, something with a noise figure under 0.5dB. down to 0.3 isnt hard to find these days. that matters a lot more on receive than squeezing another 50 watts out of your amp.

yeah the digital modes thing really did change everything for EME, ive been doing it for a couple years now on 2m and occasionally dipping into 70cm. your station sounds like it's in the right ballpark honestly. i started with a single long yagi and made my first contact inside the first weekend of trying, granted it was with a well equipped station on the other end but still it counted.

one thing nobody told me that i wish i'd known — the Doppler shift on EME is not trivial, especially on 2m and higher. you need software that handles that automatically or you'll spend half your time confused about why you cant decode anything. most of the JT65 setups handle it but double check your workflow before youre out there at 2am wondering whats wrong.