David Woolley wrote:

However, such an array is beyond the wildest dreams of even
conventional radio astronmers, let alone cash starved SETI
searchers.  As well as the problems of surveying and placing
each element, the large amount of electronics involved will
result in a system that will start to lose elements quickly and
have no maintenance man to replace them.

Although I respect your technical expertise, I am not yet
convinced that this array would be expensive to make and
maintain. The array would be made of a large number of
identical, mass produced panels. Damaged panels can be
replaced with new ones. A small percentage of damaged
panels does not seriously degrade the image quality.

The main issue is how much data would have to be
processed. If the array cannot filter out obvious
noise, SETI@homers would be overwhelmed with noise.