so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF stuff, some weak signal VHF, and honestly EME has always seemed like this crazy black magic thing that only guys with massive yagi arrays in their backyard could do. but then i started reading more about JT65 and the EME2 protocol stuff and it sounds like maybe the barrier to entry isnt quite as insane as i thought?

my current setup is pretty modest, ive got an IC-9700 and i was thinking about building or buying a decent yagi for 2m, maybe something in the 10-12 element range. i know guys are doing EME with smaller stations than i expected but im still not sure what the realistic minimums are. like what kind of preamp am i looking at, and do i actually need to worry about sequencing relays at the power levels most people run? i was reading something about MGF1302 based preamps being popular but i dont know if thats still current or if theres something better now

also how does actually making a contact work, like do people just call CQ on a specific frequency and hope someone with a big dish is listening, or is there some kind of scheduling system i should know about

the scheduling thing is actually really well organized compared to what you might expect. most activity on 2m EME happens around 144.120 USB, and yeah JT65B is the mode almost everyone uses for smaller stations. but the real key is the EME chat system, there's a dedicated chat at no longer just relying on random CQs, most contacts get set up in advance through ON4KST chat which is basically a real time coordination thing. you find someone with a big dish or a serious array, you agree on a time when the moon is up for both of you, and you go work each other. some of the big gun stations will call CQ on the calling frequency but honestly for a modest station like what youre describing you want to be scheduling

on the preamp question, MGF1302 is a bit dated now, most people running serious setups are going with the SSB Electronic or Kuhne preamps, the SP-2000 from SSB is solid and widely used. noise figure is everything on EME so you really do want that preamp as close to the feedpoint as possible, like at the antenna not in the shack. and yes absolutely use a sequencer even at 100 watts, you do not want to key up with the preamp still in line, ive heard of people frying expensive LNAs that way

i was in roughly the same position about two years ago and ended up building a pair of M2 2M9SSB yagis stacked, ran them with an IC-9700 and about 400w from a cheap LDMOS amp. worked maybe 35 stations first year which i was pretty happy with given the station size. the 9700 is actually a decent rig for this, the built in weak signal modes work fine though some purists will tell you to run WSJT-X on a computer which yeah you probably want to do anyway for logging and the EME specific features in the software.

honestly the hardest part for me wasnt the gear it was getting the antenna aimed right. az/el rotators add up fast in cost and a sloppy mount kills you on EME because youre chasing a moving target and every fraction of a dB matters. just something to plan for in the budget before you go buying amps and preamps