A radio telescope is basically just a directional antenna, a suitable radio receiver, and a way of recording the received signal (along with information about how the antenna was oriented at the time). Getting useful information out of it is the hard part.
Even an AM radio, tuned off station, can act as a "radio telescope" - that out of band noise contains a surprising amount of stellar sources. After all, that's what Jansky's original research was all about !
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Best Answer 10 years ago
A radio telescope is basically just a directional antenna, a suitable radio receiver, and a way of recording the received signal (along with information about how the antenna was oriented at the time). Getting useful information out of it is the hard part.
http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/radioastronomy/radiotelescopes
http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/hist_jansky.shtml
http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/hist_reber.shtml
Or websearch for "radio telescope diy". The first example is right here on Instructables, but that will show you some other homebrew setups.
10 years ago
Even an AM radio, tuned off station, can act as a "radio telescope" - that out of band noise contains a surprising amount of stellar sources. After all, that's what Jansky's original research was all about !