so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair amount of HF DX and some weak signal VHF stuff on 2m and 70cm but EME has always been kind of this mythical thing in the background that i figured was way out of reach for a normal guy with a suburban lot. lately though ive been reading more about it and it seems like the JT65 and now Q65 modes have kind of changed what the minimum viable station looks like? at least thats the impression im getting.

my question is basically what does a realistic entry level EME setup actually need to look like on 2m. ive got a IC-9700 already which i know is pretty capable on weak signal stuff. is the main limitation just antenna gain at that point or is the low noise preamp situation also critical. i keep seeing people say you need at least a pair of yagis minimum but then i also see guys claiming single yagi contacts with the big guns on the other end. how much of that is real and how much is people being generous with the definition of a contact

also is there any particular time of year or moon position where it gets significantly easier. i know the path loss changes somewhat with perigee vs apogee but i dont have a great feel for how much that actually matters in practice. anyway just trying to figure out if this is something i can realistically attempt without tearing up my backyard

the IC-9700 is actually a solid starting point, better than what most people had when they first got into this. the preamp situation matters a lot more than people give it credit for — you really want a good LNA right at the feedpoint, not inside the shack. something like a SSB Electronics or a Kuhne unit with a noise figure around 0.3-0.5 dB makes a real difference. the cable run from the antenna to the radio will kill you otherwise even with good coax.

single yagi EME on 2m is real but youre basically dependent on the other station being a big gun with a large array and favorable conditions. ive seen it done with a single 9 element yagi but that person was getting called by stations running 4x19 element arrays with a kilowatt. so yes the contacts happen but youre not exactly working a pile of random stations. a pair of decent cross-pol yagis, something in the 12-17 element range each, gets you into a much more workable situation where you can actually initiate contacts sometimes instead of just waiting to be heard.

perigee vs apogee is roughly 2dB difference which sounds small but at these signal levels it genuinely matters. and window duration where the moon is above both horizons is the bigger scheduling constraint honestly. get on the EME2 and ping group reflectors and start watching what people post about their schedules, youll get a feel for how it actually works operationally pretty quick.

yeah Q65 changed things quite a bit compared to the old JT65B days. i worked my first EME contact last winter with a single 13el yagi and the 9700, no fancy preamp either just the internal one, and i got a response from a station in europe running a big array. it took forever and i was definitely the weak end of that contact but it counted. so its possible.

that said i upgraded to a pair of crossed yagis a few months later and the difference was immediately noticeable, way more decode attempts actually turning into full contacts. if you have any room at all for a second yagi its worth doing from the start rather than trying to retrofit it later like i did. the mount and rotator situation gets annoying to redo.