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NPR: Enter the Quiet Zone
There are no physical signs you’ve entered the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000-square-mile area that covers the eastern half of West Virginia. But the silence gives you a signal. Somewhere around the Virginia-West Virginia state line, the periodic buzzes and pings of our smartphones stopped. “Zero [service]. Searching,” said photographer John Poole, who traveled…
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ABC News10: Town full of people lives without cellphones, Wi-Fi to get signals from space
No cell phones, no Wi-Fi… not even a radio station. And that’s just how one town in West Virginia wants it. The town of Green Bank doesn’t use personal technology because it’s listening to something else. It’s in the middle of the national radio quiet zone, home to the World’s largest movable radio telescope. The…
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CBS Pittsburgh: No Cell Phones, Wi-Fi Allowed In Small W.Va. Town
Would you believe there’s a place where no one can use a cell phone? Where Wi-Fi is not allowed? Where even finding a radio station can be a difficult task? There’s a town in West Virginia a few hours to south of Pittsburgh where all that is true. Green Bank is a place where you…
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Discovery News: Why Does This U.S. Town Ban WiFi And Cell Phones?
Imagine living where Wi-Fi and cell-phones are banned. This [West] Virginian town, is a gem for space science and safe haven for many. Aired on Discovery News. View the video here.
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Pasadena News Now: Local High School Students Hunt for Pulsars
Hanaa is hunting for a blip in a vast set of data. Although she is only a high school student, she is searching for the signal of a pulsar — a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation like a lighthouse. Hanaa and 19 of her fellow students at Alverno Heights…
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06/29/2016: Seeking Radio Silence in West Virginia’s Quiet Zone
The town of Green Bank, West Virginia, is a sleepy Appalachian town, the kind one might move to in order to escape the grind of urban centers and bustling suburbs. But its 143 residents didn’t exactly move there for literal quiet. Green Bank is located in eastern West Virginia, in what’s known as the National Radio Quiet Zone,…
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05/23/2016: Science: Nurturing Success From Failure
On a calm November evening in 1988, the 300 foot radio telescope at Green Bank Observatory collapsed. While the collapse was a huge blow to radio astronomy, it is somewhat surprising that it lasted as long as it did. The radio telescope was proposed in 1960 as a way to fill the observational gap between…
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03/26/2016: Green Bank’s Quiet Zone gets mobile service
For years, Green Bank has been known as the Quiet Zone but thanks to AT&T some parts are about to get loud. Green Bank West Virginia is home to the world’s largest steerable telescope and it’s located at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Pocahontas County. For more than 20 years, the enormous telescope has…