so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair amount of HF work, some 2m ssb tropo stuff, even a little satellite with the Funcube but EME has always seemed like this completely unreachable thing that only guys with giant yagi farms in their backyard could do. but ive been reading more about it lately and apparently the weak signal digital modes have kind of changed the game? like JT65 and now Q65 making it possible with way less antenna than the old CW days?

anyway my current 2m setup is a single 9el yagi and a pretty mediocre preamp situation, probably around 100w out from the amp. i know thats nowhere near enough for CW EME but im wondering if Q65 would make something like that workable or if im still just dreaming. also curious what people actually use for receive sensitivity — i keep seeing LNA4ALL and the Septum feeds mentioned but im not totally sure how the whole chain works together on a dedicated EME station. any pointers appreciated, even just pointing me at the right reading material would help

yeah Q65 really did change things quite a bit honestly. i worked my first EME contact on 2m with a single long yagi — i think it was a 13el M2 — and maybe 300w, and it wasnt easy but it was doable. you're right that 100w with a 9el is going to be a stretch but its not completely hopeless for receiving the big stations if your noise floor is low enough. the LNA situation matters way more than most people realize. getting a good low NF preamp right at the feedpoint, like within a few inches of the connector, makes a massive difference versus having coax run back to the shack before the preamp. the Septum feed thing is more for dishes, so if you're running yagis you dont need to worry about that yet.

the absolute best starting point imo is the WSJT-X documentation and then the ping jockey reflector, lots of experienced guys there who are pretty patient with newcomers to the mode. also look up the EME2 program some clubs run where big stations specifically listen for small stations trying to make first contacts. getting your azimuth and elevation tracking sorted is kind of step one before anything else though — even a manual system works, it just takes patience

I went through this same rabbit hole last winter. ended up spending way too many hours on the VHF reflectors reading old posts from the pre-digital era trying to figure out what was still relevant and what wasnt. short version from what i gathered: system noise temperature is basically everything. like you can have a huge antenna and if your feedline loss before the preamp is bad youre throwing signal away. i picked up a Kuhne preamp for 2m, NF something like 0.4dB, and mounted it right on the boom and that alone made a noticeable difference on tropo before i even pointed at the moon.

havent made an actual EME contact yet but ive decoded a few of the big EU stations on 144.174 which was kind of exciting just to see that working. my setup is two 9el in H polarization so still small by any measure. i think the honest answer to your question is get your noise floor as low as possible first, then worry about adding more antenna later. also make sure your Az/El rotators can do at least a few degrees per second or you'll spend half the moon window waiting for the antenna to catch up