so ive been licensed for about 12 years and EME has always been this thing in the back of my head that i figured id get to eventually. well im finally at a point where i have a decent setup and some property to work with and i want to actually try it for real instead of just reading about it forever.

right now i have a single yagi on 2m, the M2 2MXP28, running about 400 watts into it. i know thats basically the floor for EME and probably not gonna get me many contacts with CW let alone SSB, but ive been reading about how JT65 and now Q65 have kind of changed what entry level EME looks like. like is my setup actually workable or am i kidding myself. the path loss on moonbounce is something like 252 dB on 2m right, so even with Q65 im wondering if one yagi at 400w is enough to work anyone besides the big guns with massive arrays.

also i guess my bigger question is just the logistics. i need to know when the moon is up at both my QTH and whoever im trying to work, and ive been using VK3UM's EME calc software which seems to be the go-to. is that still what people use or is there something better these days. what do people actually use for scheduling contacts, is it all done through ping jockey or has that moved somewhere else. sorry for all the questions at once i just have a ton of them

your setup is workable, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. single yagi EME on 2m with Q65 is totally a thing now, ive worked guys running less than you with small antennas since Q65 became popular. the mode is just incredibly sensitive compared to JT65, like 3-4 dB more or something in that range depending on the submode, and for EME that matters a lot.

that said you will have more luck pointing at stations with big arrays at first just because they can hear you even if you struggle to decode them initially. VK3UM calc is still totally fine, a lot of guys also use PY2BS's EME system or just pull data straight into WSJT-X which handles a lot of the timing stuff for you automatically now. scheduling is mostly done through the EME2 logger on ping jockey yeah, and also just on the 2m EME reflector email list which sounds old fashioned but people actually use it constantly. moon noise measurements are a good sanity check for your whole rx chain too before you start trying to make contacts, worth doing.

honestly the antenna is the weak point more than the power for receive. 400w is decent but a single yagi means your receive is limited and EME is always about receive as much as transmit. if you can add a second yagi and H-pol you over you at least get some more gain and maybe some polarity flexibility which helps because faraday rotation is real and annoying. i went from one to two yagis and it made a noticeable difference even before i upgraded the amp. also make sure your feedline is not killing you, any coax loss between the antenna and the LNA is basically the worst thing you can do. LNA right at the antenna, that part isnt optional