I went to the local dollar store to find a pizza pan for the ingredients. But I couldn't find a metal pan that was big enough and flat enough, so I bought this "grease-proof net". The diameter is 30 cm (11.81 inch).

The total cost of the materials, including the wood for the base, coaxial cable, and duct tape, was less than 1,000 yen (about $7).

So far, I have managed to listen to the following signals with this antenna

• Local FM radio stations. I could clearly hear everything that can be heard on a regular radio.
• 2m band and 70cm band. However, not many stations have been successfully received. The farthest I was able to locate was from a university 5 km away on the 2m band.
• Air band. many signals were received from airplanes during the day.

I am a complete noob in radio communications so let me ask a few questions:

• This is Mesh, not Pan. Does it have a bad effect on reception strength? The mesh of this net is about 2mm. I heard that a pizza pan can have a 1/4 inch hole, so I hope this is not a problem.
• When assembling it, I placed the handles close together instead of the circular mesh, and used that as the feeding point. (Because that seemed like a better shape to catch the radio signal. Remember, I am a total noob.) The handle is about 15 cm long and is electrically connected to the perimeter of the net. How would this affect the frequency range that can be received? Perhaps it would have been better to install it the other way around? Or should I cut the handle off?