EME: Earth Moon Earth Communications

[Electro Fan]

This post/thread moved to:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/eme-earth-moon-earth-communications-48431/

[VK5RC]

Hi EF,  EME is achievable with home-brew gear,  there are quite a few Hams who have EME capable stations. 
Probably the easier path is to get your ham ticket which will allow you to transmit a reasonable power level on a frequency where someone else is listening. 
Guys  like vk3um ve4ma are some of the leaders in the field.
There appears roughly 2 paths,  first go for morse or voice level communication which needs a lot better S/N ie more power,  better antenna (dish)  and better receive path.  The other path is to use spread spectrum techniques (computer encoding decoding)  using a program eg jt65,  S/N can be as low as - 18dB ie below noise and still get decode.  This allows medium level eg 100w,  modest antennas ie yagis,  and little preamp. Activity on 140MHz JT65  ham band is quite active,  building a receive only station negates licencing issues.  Another area that may interest you is WSPR,  another digital mode. Communicating across the globe with 0.1 W is fascinating.
It is an interesting technical 'hobby'.
Regards Rob

[German_EE]

In forty years of amateur radio I've only ever seen one EME station, from the top of a bus in North Manchester. This station had ten beam antennas on a frame that allowed it to be pointed in any direction and each antenna was about three meters long. He must have had very understanding neighbors.

Something like this, but it was closer to the ground.

http://www.ok1rd.com/articles/8x14xp-3.jpg

[Electro Fan]

In forty years of amateur radio I've only ever seen one EME station, from the top of a bus in North Manchester. This station had ten beam antennas on a frame that allowed it to be pointed in any direction and each antenna was about three meters long. He must have had very understanding neighbors.

Something like this, but it was closer to the ground.

http://www.ok1rd.com/articles/8x14xp-3.jpg

Hehe - I'm pretty sure that unless I come up with a considerably smaller antenna this project won't fly with my Home Owners Association 
- plz join the thread which has moved to:  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/eme-earth-moon-earth-communications-48431/