[MLB-WIRELESS] On the scrounge for a 3m - 5m dish for radio astronomy

[Chris Samuel]

Hi folks, long time lurker,

Not directly wifi related[0], but I was hoping some folks here might be able to 
help out with this odd request.

I'm involved with the Mount Burnett Observatory[1] based (unsurprisingly) at 
Mount Burnett on the outer south-eastern fringe of Melbourne.  There was a 
discussion last night with a radio astronomer from Swinburne after his talk 
about the MOST telescope on the possibilities for doing useful science with a 
small radio telescope at MBO, but the obvious prerequisite for this would be a 
radio telescope.

So I wondered if anyone had any ideas for sourcing a free/cheap 3m to 5m dish 
that would be suitable for being steerable (I believe mesh is fine) ?

The observatory has limited funds (we only charge $50 a year for membership to 
keep it accessible, and a lot of that has to go on the maintenance of the site 
- it's the old Monash Uni observatory built in the early 70's) hence being on 
the scrounge for this. :-)

[0] - you could argue radio astronomy has made contributions to wifi.. :-)
[1] - http://mtburnettobservatory.org/

All the best!
Chris
-- 
 Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Melbourne, VIC