so ive been a ham for about 12 years mostly HF stuff, some 2m weak signal when the band cooperates, but ive been reading about moonbounce for probably two years now and i think i actually want to try it. not just listen but actually make contacts. i know its not trivial and the equipment requirements are kind of intense depending on how you approach it.

my current setup is a ft-991a and a 5 element yagi for 2m which i know is basically nothing for EME. i was looking at the JT65 digital modes since i know thats how most of the activity happens these days, and wsjt-x handles that. but the antenna situation is where i get lost. ive seen people running 4x9 element arrays and ive seen people claiming they worked EME with a single long yagi on JT65B which honestly seems impossible to me but apparently its a thing?

also what kind of preamp situation do i need, i see a lot of people talking about mounting the LNA right at the feedpoint and i get why but is that mandatory or just really helpful. and what about the dish route vs yagi arrays, i have some space for a dish maybe 2-3 meters. tried searching the archives here but got kind of overwhelmed.

yeah the single yagi thing is real, EME has changed a lot since the JT65 days and even more since people started running Q65. a single long yagi, like a 9 or 12 element reasonably high gain one, can work if your station is otherwise tight. meaning low loss feedline or ideally the LNA literally at the antenna, and a decent power amp. you wont be running skeds with everyone but activity weekends you can find stations with big arrays that will hear you even if you cant hear them as well.

for your space situation honestly a 2-3m dish is pretty compelling. the gain on a proper 2.4m dish is somewhere around 20-21 dBd at 144 which is competitive with a 4x9 array and its a lot simpler mechanically in some ways, though you absolutely need decent az/el tracking which is its own rabbit hole. yagi arrays have the advantage of being more forgiving on the pointing and you can build them incrementally, start with 2 yagis, add more later.

the LNA placement is not optional if you want to be serious about it. coax loss before the first amplification stage kills your noise figure. even 1dB of loss there matters at moonbounce signal levels. most people use a relay-switched LNA right at the boom or at the feed. SSB Electronic and Kuhne make good ones, some people roll their own. your ft-991a should be fine as the IF radio if you bypass the preamp stage and manage levels carefully into wsjt-x.

i went through exactly this about 18 months ago. ended up going the 4x17 element yagi route because i had the yard space and i was intimidated by the dish tracking stuff. first actual contact took me a few weekends of messing with the setup to get right, mostly feedline issues and the LNA wasnt seated right at the connector so i was getting more noise than i should have been.

one thing nobody really told me upfront was how much the moon's position matters for your takeoff angle. i have some trees to the east and theres a solid window of maybe 3-4 hours where the moon is in clear sky from my QTH, so i basically plan everything around that. the EME2 or Heavens-Above sites help a lot for planning but you gotta walk your yard at different times and just look at where the obstacles actually are. sounds obvious but i wasted a whole activity weekend before i figured out my best window.