So ive been licensed about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF DX, some 2m weak signal stuff, and im starting to get the moonbounce itch. I know its not exactly a plug and play kind of thing but ive been reading up and honestly the more i read the more i feel like i dont fully understand the scope of what this takes equipment wise.

Right now i have a FT-991A and a decent 2m setup — M2 5WL yagi on a light az/el mount i built for satellite work. I know that antenna is way too small for serious EME but i keep seeing people say you can do JT65B contacts with a single yagi if your power is there. How much power are we actually talking? I have an old Mirage brick that does maybe 160w out but i feel like thats not even close. Also what are people actually using for az/el control because my satellite mount is pretty slow and im not sure itd track the moon well enough. Anyway not looking to spend 50k on a dish setup, just want to understand if there's a realistic path in with what i have or close to it.

Honest answer — with a single 5WL yagi you're gonna struggle but its not completely hopeless if you work stations with big arrays on the other end. The math is rough. EME path loss on 2m is something like 252dB and you need to overcome that with EIRP on both ends. Single yagi guys do make contacts but they really depend on the other station running serious hardware, like a 4x25el array or a dish. Your 160w is low — most single yagi ops are pushing 500w to 1500w at the feedpoint, legal limit in a lot of cases. The Mirage wont cut it.

For az/el the speed thing matters more than you'd think. Moon moves faster than you expect and if you're trying to peak up before a sequence you need something reasonably responsive. G-5500 combo is the classic starting point, lots of people run that for EME. The interface to get it talking to your logging software is the other piece. WSJT-X handles JT65B and Q65 which is what most people run now honestly, Q65 is noticeably better in marginal conditions. If you can get a used 4x yagi array going with proper phasing and push 500w legal limit you'd have a real shot at contacts, not just big stations either.

yeah what he said about Q65 — i switched from JT65B maybe two years ago and the difference on marginal paths is real, worth reading the WSJT-X docs on which submode to pick because it varies by antenna size basically. Also dont sleep on the preamp situation, a good low noise preamp at the feedpoint makes a bigger difference than people expect, like a 0.3dB NF unit right at the antenna vs a mediocre one in the shack is significant over a path that long. SSB Electronic and Down East Microwave both make stuff people trust for this. your receive chain matters almost as much as your transmit EIRP when youre working marginal contacts.