so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF DX but EME has always been kind of in the back of my mind as this crazy thing that seemed impossible for a regular guy with a normal suburban lot. lately ive been reading more into it and with JT65 and stuff it sounds like the barrier to entry is lower than it used to be, at least on 2m.

my question is what does a realistic starter setup look like. i keep seeing people mention 4 yagis as kind of the minimum to actually work anybody, but then i also see posts about single yagi contacts happening on 2m EME with good operators. is that actually repeatable or is it more of a best case scenario thing. also what are we talking for power, i have an IC-9700 which i think does like 10w on 2m, obviously thats not going to cut it but what do most people run. the path loss numbers i see thrown around are insane, like 250+ dB, hard to wrap my head around that actually working at all.

also curious if there are certain windows or times that are better, i know the moon has to be above the horizon for both stations obviously but beyond that is there more to it. any pointers appreciated, not trying to build a dish farm just want to understand if this is actually doable for someone with maybe a 100 foot run of coax and a mid-size yagi setup.

the single yagi thing does happen but yeah its really dependent on the other station running serious iron. if youre working someone with a big array and a kilowatt they can pull you out even with a modest setup on your end. its not really a two-way street though, you kind of rely on the other guy compensating for your deficiency if that makes sense.

realistically for 2m EME most guys are running at least 500w to the feedpoint, a lot run 1kw or close to it with a good solid state amp or an older tube amp like a 3CX800. and the yagi situation, 4x9el or 4x12el is kind of the sweet spot where you start to be able to work average stations not just the giants. single long yagi plus high power will get you some contacts during good conditions especially around perigee when the moon is closest but it takes patience.

the coax run is actually where people kill themselves and dont realize it. 100 feet of LMR-400 at 2m is already eating a dB or so, and every dB counts on EME more than anywhere else. a lot of serious EME guys put the preamp right at the feedpoint, like physically at the antenna, and the question of where the power amp lives matters too. its worth thinking about that early rather than retrofitting later.

the moon windows, yeah youre right that you both need it above horizon but beyond that perigee vs apogee makes a real difference, maybe 2dB of path loss difference which is actually significant at these levels. the EME2 logger and the moon sked software most guys use will show you common windows with different parts of the world, europe tends to have good activity on 2m weekends.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been watching EME from the sidelines for a while. one thing i found really helpful was just getting on the logger at pisces.eas.asu.edu or wherever it is now and just watching contacts happen for a few sessions before trying anything. you get a feel for signal levels and what kind of exchanges are realistic with what gear pretty fast.

i ended up going with a single 9el M2 and 400w through a cheap chinese LDMOS amp and managed to work 3 stations my first moon pass, all of them were big gun stations in europe but still it worked. so its not hopeless with modest gear but like the other guy said youre leaning on them hard.