Linda Thompson

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and been doing HF mostly, some VHF contest stuff, but EME has always been in the back of my head as this crazy goal. talked to a guy at the club last year who works 2m EME with a single yagi and JT65 and honestly that blew my mind because i always assumed you needed like a massive dish and a kilowatt just to even attempt it. so i started reading around and now im more confused than before. some guys say you need at least a 2x8 yagi array, others say a single long yagi with 500 watts is doable on 2m if you pick the right window. i have an IC-9700 which i think handles the IF shift and doppler stuff okay but i genuinely dont know if thats true or if i need some external SDR setup. also the preamp situation — i keep reading about low noise preamps but nobody really explains where you mount them, like at the antenna feedpoint or in the shack. not really asking for a shopping list just trying to get a sense of what a realistic first EME setup looks like for someone who isnt going to build a 10 meter dish in their backyard

okay so i just passed my general exam last week, super excited, and my sequential callsign already showed up in the ULS — got a pretty standard 2x3 which is fine honestly but ive been reading about the vanity callsign system and im kind of lost on how it all works. from what i can tell you have to wait some period of time before applying for a vanity? or is that only for certain call districts? i saw something about a 18 month wait but then someone else said thats not a thing anymore and i dont know what to believe. also do you have to be a certain license class to get a 1x2 or 2x1 call or is it just about availability and what region youre in? i basically just want to understand the actual process before i go filling anything out wrong and messing something up. any help appreciated, been lurking here for a while and you all seem to know your stuff

yeah what he said about the sequencer is no joke, i fried a preamp once because i was too casual about the TX/RX switching. cost me like $180 and a lot of embarrassment. now i use a proper sequencer and everything keys in the right order, preamp bypass first then PTT then PA, and reverse on the way out. one thing i'd add is dont overlook the coax. if you run 50 feet of mediocre coax from the feedpoint to the shack youre basically throwing away half the reason you bought a good LNA. LMR-400 minimum, a lot of EME guys go straight to hardline or use a short jumper of LMR-600 at least. its not cheap but neither is spending a weekend chasing the moon and hearing nothing because your feed line is lossy.

so i finally took the plunge and dragged myself out to a local park with my KX2 and a random wire antenna i threw together the night before. honestly had no idea what to expect — ive been a ham for about 3 years but mostly just sit at the shack and rag chew on 40m with the full 100w setup. figured id try something different. got maybe 6 contacts in about 2 hours which i know isnt amazing but it felt incredible given i was running like 5 watts into a wire draped over a tree branch. made it to a station in Georgia which was cool, im in Ohio. anyway a couple things im wondering about — first, is there a rule of thumb for matching your antenna to QRP power levels or does it just not matter as much as antenna placement? and second, is there a big difference in efficiency between a dedicated QRP rig like the KX2 versus just turning down a regular 100w radio? feels like it should matter but im not sure why also the whole experience was just... really different from shack operating. like genuinely more satisfying somehow. anyway yeah those are my main questions if anyone has thoughts

Don't overthink it honestly. For most local nets you just wait for net control to call for check-ins — they'll usually say something like "all stations wishing to check in please call now" and then you just key up and give your callsign phonetically. Some nets want you to add your name and location, some just want the call. Best thing to do is listen to a full net cycle before you ever try to check in so you get a feel for the pacing. The pauses between stations can be really short on busy nets so it helps to already have your hand on the PTT and ready to go. For the special event station, that's just a regular contact — call them like any other station, give your call, wait for them to come back to you. They're usually very patient because they expect a pile-up and a lot of new folks calling in. The W1AW portable operations or anniversary events are pretty forgiving. Just go for it, worst case they ask you to repeat yourself.

your 2x yagi setup is actually not a bad starting point, honestly more people get into it that way than you'd think. the real game changer was Q65 and before that JT65 because the path loss to the moon and back is something like 252 dB on 2m, which is just a brutal number, but the digital modes let you pull contacts out of what sounds like pure noise. before that era you basically needed the big arrays or forget it. the thing that matters as much as antenna gain is your system noise figure. like if you have a mediocre preamp 10 feet of coax away from the feedpoint you're throwing away so much of what your antenna is doing. a good relay-switched LNA right at the feedpoint, something with a noise figure under 0.5 dB ideally, that's where you want to spend money first in my opinion. even more important than adding a third yagi. for scheduling and finding activity the EME2 reflector is still the main spot and people post their operating windows based on moon position, it's all coordinated around moonrise/moonset windows when the geometry works for both stations. there's also the WSJT-X software built around this stuff, grab that and start monitoring 144.120 when the moon's up and you'll hear activity pretty quick. 500w and a pair of yagis with a good LNA you could absolutely make contacts, might need patience but it's doable.

External tuners like the Unique Wire Tuner almost always have the lowest losses of the group. It uses an "L" network, which theoretically will be the lowest loss configuration. Built-in autotuners can have at least 3 dB of loss beyond that of the best tuner, meaning at full power, at least 50 watts is being dissipated in the tuner components. For serious operation, external is worth it.

By taking the tuner through all the bands, you train it for when you return to that band. It memorizes the settings. However, your 8 ohm impedance is probably below the Z-11's matching range. Consider a 4:1 balun instead of 9:1 - might bring that impedance into a more workable range around 32 ohms.