The toy panda bear is propping up one side of the microwave at HacDC.

He might not be Mr. Universe but Ken Jones, a volunteer at UHF television station 45 South in New Zealand is just as determined to make sure that an uplink signal hits the airwaves. Because the station either wasn't able to purchase a $20kus microwave uplink to get their signal to a full-sized broadcast station, Jones constructed a parabolic antenna to broadcast their signal using a $10us wok from a housewares store.

That's right, a wok. As it turns out, if you work the math behind parabolic reflectors, the particular kind of wok he bought works just as well as …