They also want to share what they’re learning about the upper atmosphere by shooting massive amounts of radio waves at it.

With the right antenna tuner, essentially any piece of metal can be connected to a radio and used as an antenna. There are a few things that improve that antenna’s performance, though.

For FM, if you can connect it to a house antenna just like most televisions used to be, you’ll hear stations from greater distances than ever before. Of course, all of this is moot if you listen ...

Tim Keller, of Coram, aimed a dish antenna toward the GOES-19 weather and environmental monitoring satellite. ... tuned a ham radio during the open house in Yaphank. Credit: Rick Kopstein ...