so ive been licensed for about 6 years now, mostly HF stuff, some 2m weak signal when conditions are good, but ive been reading about EME for probably a year and i think i want to actually try it. not just listen, actually make contacts. i know the path loss is absolutely brutal and this isnt something you just casually do with a 100w radio and a yagi you bought on sale but i want to understand what the realistic minimum setup looks like for 2m EME in.

from what ive gathered you basically need either a big dish or a decent yagi array, a really low noise preamp right at the feedpoint, and then either a kilowatt or close to it on the TX side. and obviously JT65 or Q65 because nobody is doing CW EME with a modest station unless theyre insane or have like 4 yagis stacked. am i in the right ballpark here? i keep seeing people mention "single yagi EME" as if its possible and im not sure if theyre being serious or if that requires like a 9 element yagi and 1500w and perfect timing.

also curious what kind of az/el rotator situation people are running. i have a TV rotator that i use for satellite stuff and i know thats not gonna cut it for a big antenna. any specific controller setups people are using that interface well with the logging software? im using WSJT-X already for FT8 so at least that part of the chain is familiar.

single yagi EME on 2m is absolutely real, not a myth. i did my first EME contact in 2019 with a single M2 2MXP28 (28 element cross yagi) running about 750w into it and a SSB Electronics preamp at the boom. worked maybe a dozen stations the first weekend i seriously tried during a contest window. the key is Q65 has made this way more accessible than it used to be - JT65 works too but Q65 is noticeably better for the really marginal paths.

for az/el you really do need something beefy. i run a Yaesu G-5500 which is the kind of baseline most people start with for this. it works, its not perfect, backlash can be annoying but its manageable. the G-5500 talks to a controller board and you can feed position data into WSJT-X or use a separate tracking program - i use PstRotator which handles the moon tracking automatically and just passes data to the rotator controller. that part of the setup actually isnt that complicated once you get it configured.

your noise figure at the preamp is going to matter more than almost anything else. you want to be under 0.5 dB NF ideally, the preamp needs to be at the antenna not in the shack. every foot of coax between the antenna and preamp before amplification is killing you. a lot of people use the Kuhne or SSB Electronics units and theyre well regarded. dont cheap out there.

yeah what he said about the preamp location is no joke. i made the mistake of running about 8 feet of LMR-400 from my yagi to the preamp when i first set up and the difference when i moved the preamp up to the boom was pretty significant, could actually decode signals i was just barely seeing before. its one of those things where you understand it intellectually but then you actually do it and go oh wow okay.

one thing i'd add is dont underestimate how much the moon window matters depending on your location and horizon. i'm in a bit of a valley and i lose probably 10-15 degrees of elevation on my east side which has cost me contacts. if you have a clear horizon all around you're in better shape but most of us dont. the tracking software will show you the moon rise/set times and the elevation at those points so you can figure out how much of each window youre actually going to have usable time in.

also the EME2 reflector and the on4kst chat are where the activity gets coordinated. people post their schedules and if you're trying to work specific stations you kind of need to be in that ecosystem. its a small community but pretty helpful overall in my experience.