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.

On Mon, 03 May 2004 22:15:38 +0200, Andrew Nowicki <andrew@nospam.com>
wrote:

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 1st problem is that once the panels are made there is no need for
more. That makes each one expensive. Even if you are talking about
10,000 panels you have a dead end in the manufacturing process. Even
if you make 1,000 extra panels, the assembly will have to be shut down
and all that equipment will no longer be usefull. The key to bringing
costs down is to find a way to keep the assembly process going even
after the panels have been built. And I am not talking about 1 or 2
panels a month!
And if you don't make panels until needed then the costs will
skyrocket because you will have to bring the workers back to not only
make 1 or even 100 panels but to make sure all the equipment is within
specs to even build it.
2nd comes down to storage of the extra panels, are they stable in
storage or do they need tweaking before they can be installed as
replacements? More costs.
If you can come up with a way to make panels that is ongoing either
thru attrition or upgrading the technology or even making more arrays,
etc. the costs can come down. Even if you made panels that have
multiple uses the costs could be spread out over a few hundred
thousand panels.
Of course grants or even government involvement would be ideal! But in
the end even they can run out making long term costs again skyrocket.

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.

The software seems to be able to do most of the filtering now.
Assuming you can get the scientists and programmers working together
that can be done again.