Mr McMickle was inspired by the example of the giant radio dish in a natural depression at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, which relies on the Earth’s rotation and axial tilt to bring a narrow but representative bandwidth past its focal point.
He computed that as the receding water had left a parabolic clay pan 40 metres in diameter, it was simply a matter of removing the various three-clawed yabbies left over from it's toxic period to make it ready for an inexpensive lining of aluminium foil.
The problem of mounting a secondary can be dispensed with simply by operating it in a Herschel mode, which has the advantage that dozens of strategically located pole mounted observers - or for that matter, CCD operators - could simultaneously use the big scope.
Such a telescope would be the largest single mirror telescope in the world and at the same time make Wiruna one of the top ten amateur society sites in Australia.