DO IT YOURSELF parabolic microphone for a hobbiest?

Has anyone (or does anyone know someone) who has built their own 
parabolic microphone from extremely inexpensive components?  I was 
thinking of getting a small used broken (but not the actual dish 
broken) DISH NETWORK aluminum satillite dish and re-engineering it 
with a microphone.  Has anyone done this effectively?  What was the 
bottom line cost for the whole setup?  I would want to mount this on 
a tripod (that I already own) and connect a set of cheap headphones.

I would then use this to listen for the different species in the 
area.  Maybe even to use it for a sound/species survey.

I am only interested in this on an amatuer hobbiest scale, as I 
really do not wish to spend the money (a few hundred to few thousand 
dollars) that more professional setups require. 

 



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