so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF DX but a buddy of mine at the club just did his first moonbounce QSO on 2m and now i cant stop thinking about it. i know its a massive undertaking and the path loss is insane, somewhere around 250dB if i remember right, but the idea of bouncing a signal off the moon and having someone hear it on the other side of the world is just... i dunno it hits different than a normal pile-up.

anyway im trying to figure out the antenna situation first because i know thats usually the biggest limiting factor. i have room for something decent in the backyard, maybe a 4-yagi array if i push it. i see a lot of guys running 4x9el or 4x12el setups on 144 MHz, is that the realistic minimum to actually make contacts these days or do you need more. and is the H-frame vs X-frame mounting thing a real performance difference or just aesthetics. also running a single large yagi and just doing JT65 EME contacts, is that even feasible anymore or is it a waste of time trying.

i know i have a lot of questions, i just want to make sure i go in with a reasonable understanding before i start spending money on this stuff

the path loss is actually closer to 252dB on 2m depending on lunar distance, but yeah roughly that ballpark. honest answer on your antenna question — a single long yagi running JT65B can absolutely work EME, especially with a good low-noise preamp at the feedpoint. ive seen guys make contacts with a single 9el cross-yagi and 100 watts, its slow going but it happens. the 4-yagi array is obviously way better, each time you double your antenna elements you get 3dB which adds up fast.

H-frame vs X-frame is mostly a mechanical preference thing in my experience, the stacking distances matter more than which frame style you use. if you go with 4x yagis you want to get the horizontal and vertical spacing optimized for your specific yagi design, usually around 2.2 to 2.6 wavelengths depending on the boom length. dont just guess at the spacing, there are stacking calculators online and its worth spending an hour on it.

the other thing people underestimate is the preamp. a 0.3dB noise figure vs a 0.6dB one sounds like nothing but at these signal levels it matters. EME pro is still the go-to logging software for this stuff if you havent looked at it yet.

i did my first EME qso about two years ago on 144, was running 4x10el DK7ZB yagis in an H-frame with an IC-9700 and maybe 300w at the antenna. honestly the hardest part wasnt the hardware it was the operating, getting used to watching the waterfall and understanding the JT65B sequencing took me longer than i expected. first qso was with a station in Japan and i sat there for like 5 minutes just staring at the screen before it hit me what had just happened.

one thing worth knowing is there are dedicated EME contests on the calendar, the ARRL EME contest runs in the fall and thats a good time to get on because activity is way up and even modest stations have a better chance of making contacts. theres also the online EME chat systems like MMMonVHF and the WSJT moonbounce chat that let you schedule skeds in advance which helps a lot when youre just getting started and dont have a massive station. scheduling a sked with someone who has a big antenna pointed your way is way easier than cold calling on random echos