Introduction

Communicating over great distances via VHF continues to fascinate many amateurs. EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) communication, also known as "moonbounce", meteor scatter, and VHF cw DX are some of the techniques used. In the case of EME and meteor scatter, the concept is simple: use the moon or the ionized trail of a meteor as a passive reflector for VHF and UHF signals. A simple but effective station is within the reach of most amateur experimenters. With the advent of very sensitive receiving preamplifiers and commercially available high-gain Yagi antennas, many VHF operators are enjoying successful weak signal contacts. With a total path length of about 500,000 miles, EME is the ultimate DX

Additional resources

Antenna Book
Operating Manual

Articles

Note: Some of the following articles are in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. To view and print these files, you'll need a copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader program. (Version 7.0 or later required). More information here.

• A Basic Approach to Moonbounce (1,474,560 bytes, PDF file)
  QST July 1985, pp. 18-21
  Is moonbounce an esoteric mode beyond the reach of most amateurs? No! Recent advances in amateur equipment have brought EME even closer to the mainstream of Amateur Radio.
• WSJT: New Software for VHF Meteor-Scatter Communication (264,508 bytes, PDF file)
  QST December 2001, pp. 36-41
  Computer software helps to communicate by bouncing signals off the ionized trails of meteors.
• JT44: New Digital Mode for Weak Signals 58,459 bytes, PDF file)
  QST June 2002, pp. 81-82
• The Journey to EME on 24 GHz, Part 1 (515,737 bytes, PDF file)
  QST October 2002, pp. 28-32
  Exploring the microwave region for moonbounce
• The Journey to EME on 24 GHz, Part 2 (573,089 bytes, PDF file)
  QST November 2002, pp. 43-47

Note:

Contact information for suppliers mentioned in the above articles should first be confirmed using TIS Address Database Search.

Bibliography (Members Only)

ARRL Periodicals Index Search - This database contains the QST index from 1915 to the present and the QEX index from 1981 to the present. For QST issues from 1970 to the present, and some selected articles back to 1922 (when construction articles featuring tubes began in earnest), identifying keywords have been added to the technical articles. By entering keywords (ANTENNA) or combinations of keywords (CONSTRUCTION ANTENNA VERTICAL HF) into the Title words: field, you may create dynamic bibliographies.
Technical article KEYWORD list. Hints for more successful searching

Suggested keywords for more articles like the ones on this page are: EME

Web Links:

• MoonBounce (EME) Operation

Article Reprints:

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