Recently I've been reading about EME and there was one thing that surprised me. Many sources claim that EME has path loss for 2m band about 252 dB. In the same time they claim (one, two):
Recent advances in digital signal processing have allowed EME contacts, admittedly with low data rate, to take place with powers in the order of 100 Watts and a single Yagi–Uda antenna. [About 8-9 elements according to other sources.]
100W is 50 dBm and the common sensitivity of the receiver is about 0.11 uV (the number for Yaesu FT-991A, SSB @ 2m band) or:
>>> from math import pow, log10
>>> 10*log10(1000*pow((0.11/1000/1000),2)/50)
-126.16184634019568
... -126 dB. Assuming that all 50 dBm are radiated straight to the moon (ideal radiation pattern of the antenna):
>>> 50-252
-202
... we are not even close to -126 dB. So what is actual relation between path loss, receiver sensitivity, and also used power and antennas gain?