so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF work, some VHF contesting on 2m and 70cm, but ive always been kind of fascinated by EME. watched a few videos of guys working the moon and it just looks insane to me that you can bounce a signal off the actual moon and have someone on the other side of the planet copy it.

anyway i started looking into what it actually takes and honestly got a little overwhelmed. like i understand the path loss is absolutely brutal — something like 252 dB on 2m if i remember right — and you need either a big dish or a yagi array to make up for that. ive seen setups ranging from a single long yagi and 100w all the way to these massive EME stations with 4x or 8x yagi arrays and a kilowatt amp. the JT65 and Q65 modes have obviously changed things a lot compared to the old CW days but i still feel like i dont know where the minimum viable station actually is.

my current setup is a 9 element yagi for 2m with a decent preamp and about 150w out of an IC-9700. i know thats not going to cut it for most EME but im wondering how far off i am. do i need to go full array or is a longer single yagi with more power even worth attempting? and whats the realistic path to a first contact, like do you just get on JT65 and call CQ on 144.120 and hope for the best or is there more coordination involved than that

any pointers appreciated, ive read the K1JT stuff and a bunch of the old VHF-DX pages but real world experience from people who have actually done it would be helpful

yeah so 9 el and 150w is going to be tough but its not impossible depending on who you're trying to work. the thing is EME has gotten way more accessible since Q65 came along, its got a couple dB advantage over JT65 for weak signal stuff which actually matters a lot on a path with that kind of loss. some of the big stations in europe and japan are genuinely running 4 and 8 yagi arrays with full legal limit and they can hear almost anyone with a halfway decent setup.

realistically though for a single yagi 2m station you'd probably want to be closer to a 17 or 21 element long boom yagi and push the power up as high as you can reasonably do. the IC-9700 at 10w out to a linear is fine, lots of guys run the HL-450B or a SSPA in that range. the other thing people dont talk about enough is the feedline situation — if you have 2 or 3 dB of loss between the radio and the antenna thats absolutely killing you, especially on receive. a good low noise preamp right at the antenna like an SSB Electronics or a Kuhne is basically mandatory.

for coordination honestly just check the ON4KST 2m chat, thats where everyone schedules these days. you post your locator and your setup and people will try a sked with you if your station looks viable. dont just call CQ on 144.120 expecting results, especially starting out. also check the EME2 reflector, old school but people still use it for skeds

i did my first EME contact about 2 years ago on 2m with a 4x9el array and around 400w, worked a big gun station in russia running like 8 yagis and a kw, wasnt exactly a fair fight lol but it still counted. the moment you actually decode something bounced off the moon its just a completely different feeling than a normal VHF contact.

one thing that tripped me up early on — the moon moves fast enough that you have to account for doppler shift, not huge on 2m but enough that you need your frequency spot on and WSJT-X handles it automatically with the EME mode but you gotta have your grid set right and check the moon position stuff actually makes sense for your QTH. also az/el rotor is obviously needed, a lot of guys underestimate how annoying it is to track manually even for a short window. i built a cheap az/el setup with a couple of old prop pitch motors and it works fine but getting it calibrated took a weekend