Worse receiver, but better antenna: From the linked article: "... With their system [...] they were able to estimate that the minimum dish aperture required to

Worse receiver, but better antenna: From the linked article: "... With their system [...] they were able to estimate that the minimum dish aperture required to observe the Vela pulsar would be 6m, noting that the Vela pulsar is probably the strongest pulsar ever detected" As a kid, I built a crystal radio. There it was the same: with a very long wire, even such a simple radio could receive far-away stations