QUESTION:
I would like to know what materials you used to create the the antenna as
this must be one of the most 'high tech' pieces of machinery on >board.

ANSWER from Dr. Rick Pomphrey and Jerry Millard on January 11, 1996:
The HGA (high gain antenna) is composed of a wire mesh held in place
by graphite-epoxy ribs.  The wire mesh is molybdenum wire which is
coated with gold plating.  The gold is a less reactive material which
helps protect the antenna from chemical attack.  There is a shade at
the top of the antenna tower to protect the stowed antenna and other
antenna tower components from the sun prior to deployment.  Deployment
could not be done until the spacecraft was far enough away from the
sun (given it had to fly by Venus) to not over heat the antenna when
it was deployed from under the shade.  The shade is made of black
(carbon-filled) Kapton covering an aluminum honeycomb support
structure.  The backside (opposite the sunlit side) of the shade is
painted white with zinc orthotitanate paint to act as a radiator to
help cool the top of the antenna tower.  

The LGA (low gain antenna) at the very top of the tower is painted white 
with zinc orthotitanate paint also to keep it sufficiently cool as it is 
in direct sunlight.  A lot of multilayer insulation blanketing is used in 
the tower to control the temperature of the the antenna feeds and the 
Plasma instrument located in the tower.  The positioning pins on the ribs 
which kept the antenna in place when stowed (and three are hung up and 
did not allow the antenna to fully open) are made of titanium and the 
components they fit into are made of aluminum.