GREEN BANK, W.Va. — Don’t bother asking; no one can hear you now. It’s possible to drive for hours in this mountain hollow without encountering a cellphone signal, and some newcomers think they owe their lives to it.
Pocahontas County, population 8,719, is the epicenter of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000-square-mile rectangular area covering parts of West Virginia and Virginia. The zone, larger than the state of Maryland, was established in 1958 to minimize manmade signals that cloud the observations of radiotelescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The Allegheny Mountains are a natural block against radio signals, and federal law allows strict regulation of manmade signals from fixed, permanent transmitters, such as cellphone towers, within the quiet zone. State law sets limits for the signal strength of electronic devices within a 10-mile radius of the telescope.
Diane Schou may have been the first person suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, a scientifically controversial condition that sufferers say causes them to become ill after exposure to things such as cellphone towers Wi-Fi, to settle in the radiotelescopes’ shadow.
“It’s not a perfect place, but it’s the only place in the world that in my opinion is protected,” Schou told The Daily.
Schou said she left the Iowa farm where she lived with her husband after emissions from a cellphone tower built nearby started causing her physical pain. She sought solace in Norway, Sweden and Arizona before settling in West Virginia in 2007, and now, electromagnetically sensitive people from all over the world come to visit, she said.
Rosemary Hofer, a local real estate agent, said the quiet zone has attracted several people who have sought refuge in towns near the telescope.
“I’ve sold people land, and they’ve actually built houses where they only had electricity in half of the house,” Hofer said.
Hofer sold a house last month to Deborah Cooney, a 48-year-old San Diego musician and teacher. Cooney fled her home in August after becoming convinced she was getting sick from the signals her smart meter emitted when it transmitted electricity usage data to her utility company.
“It was like this shot in my heart, and all of a sudden, cascading heart attack symptoms like numbness in the fingers and toes, difficulty breathing, heart arrhythmia,” Cooney told The Daily. “It so injured me that I couldn’t tolerate anything anymore.”
Some locals are happy to forgo cellphones for different reasons. William Jordan, a bank branch manager and president of the Pocahontas County Chamber of Commerce, said he feels sorry for people he encounters elsewhere who seem glued to their electronic devices. Others say life is more peaceful sans digital tether.
“It allows me to have quiet, disconnected from the distractions of technology and texting and phone calls,” said David Fleming, a Pocahontas County commissioner and website designer. “It allows one who lives here to really live here.”
The adjustment can be hard on tourists. Laura Parquette, a spokeswoman for the Snowshoe Mountain Ski Resort, said smartphone-addicted visitors from Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va. feel either relieved or shipwrecked upon realizing their phones are useless.
“You see people walking around holding the cellphone up trying to get the signal, like it’s going to come down to you from the sky,” Parquette said.
Some locals grow impatient with radio silence. Malinda Meck and her husband looked into buying ham radios to communicate with employees at their construction company during the day, but the radios the observatory approved were too expensive, Meck said.
“In some ways, I don’t even think about it because I’ve always lived here and that’s just the way it is,” Meck said. “But there are some times when it’s very frustrating because you need to get a hold of someone immediately, and it’s impossible.”
Wireless Internet is one of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s biggest headaches in the telescopes’ immediate area. The local telephone and cable provider said it doesn’t provide wireless modems to the approximately 300 customers in the 10-mile radius, but observatory business manager Michael Holstine said residents buy them elsewhere.
The sources of interference have grown more diverse as wireless technology has become more pervasive. Even car gauges that transmit information about tire pressure to the dashboard cause interference, Holstine said.
White pickup trucks jammed with laptops and signal reading equipment help track down errant signals, such as the one that came from Ryder’s Restaurant earlier this spring.
“The cable guy and Mr. Sizemore were out back, and they had their machines and whatever,” said Paula Ryder, the restaurant owner. “I went out to see what was going on and I got a little nasty with them.”
Inside, technician Wesley Sizemore found the staff had run a lead from their cable television down through the antenna of an old radio to pick up a signal for their favorite FM station, which doesn’t come in so close to the observatory. The jury-rigged arrangement was unintentionally rebroadcasting the cable signals, Sizemore said.
“We purchased them a brand new radio, and I went and installed it for them, took the old one and destroyed it, and they’re happy,” Sizemore said, noting that he connected the new radio to the cable system so it worked without leaking cable transmissions. “We could have been hard-nosed and said, ‘You have to get rid of this; it’s an illegal transmitter.’ But you don’t want to do that in a local population.”
In 28 years with the observatory, Sizemore has seen interference from an electric fence equipped with a timer to keep deer out of a garden at night, a chewed-through electric blanket that kept a dog warm in his doghouse and an elementary school thermostat.
“The energy released by a single snowflake landing on the ground is more energy than has been received from space by all radiotelescopes on the face of the earth since the beginning of radioastronomy,” Sizemore said. “That’s the thing that you have to wrap your brain around.”
Holstine said the observatory turns down nine applications for every one it approves to use the Green Bank Telescope, one of the world’s most powerful radiotelescopes. Its 100-meter surface can detect radio waves that have traveled billions of light-years through space, but even operating a digital camera too close to the telescope can overwhelm the faint signals.
“You get a signal, and it looks like just what you’re looking for,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, which has used the Green Bank Telescope to search for extraterrestrial life. Interference “makes a thicket of jungle that you’ve got to hack your way through to find the signal that isn’t being produced by Homo sapiens.”
— Ashley Kindergan
Pocahontas County, population 8,719, is the epicenter of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000-square-mile rectangular area covering parts of West Virginia and Virginia. The zone, larger than the state of Maryland, was established in 1958 to minimize manmade signals that cloud the observations of radiotelescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The Allegheny Mountains are a natural block against radio signals, and federal law allows strict regulation of manmade signals from fixed, permanent transmitters, such as cellphone towers, within the quiet zone. State law sets limits for the signal strength of electronic devices within a 10-mile radius of the telescope.
Diane Schou may have been the first person suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, a scientifically controversial condition that sufferers say causes them to become ill after exposure to things such as cellphone towers Wi-Fi, to settle in the radiotelescopes’ shadow.
“It’s not a perfect place, but it’s the only place in the world that in my opinion is protected,” Schou told The Daily.
Schou said she left the Iowa farm where she lived with her husband after emissions from a cellphone tower built nearby started causing her physical pain. She sought solace in Norway, Sweden and Arizona before settling in West Virginia in 2007, and now, electromagnetically sensitive people from all over the world come to visit, she said.
Rosemary Hofer, a local real estate agent, said the quiet zone has attracted several people who have sought refuge in towns near the telescope.
“I’ve sold people land, and they’ve actually built houses where they only had electricity in half of the house,” Hofer said.
Hofer sold a house last month to Deborah Cooney, a 48-year-old San Diego musician and teacher. Cooney fled her home in August after becoming convinced she was getting sick from the signals her smart meter emitted when it transmitted electricity usage data to her utility company.
“It was like this shot in my heart, and all of a sudden, cascading heart attack symptoms like numbness in the fingers and toes, difficulty breathing, heart arrhythmia,” Cooney told The Daily. “It so injured me that I couldn’t tolerate anything anymore.”
Some locals are happy to forgo cellphones for different reasons. William Jordan, a bank branch manager and president of the Pocahontas County Chamber of Commerce, said he feels sorry for people he encounters elsewhere who seem glued to their electronic devices. Others say life is more peaceful sans digital tether.
“It allows me to have quiet, disconnected from the distractions of technology and texting and phone calls,” said David Fleming, a Pocahontas County commissioner and website designer. “It allows one who lives here to really live here.”
The adjustment can be hard on tourists. Laura Parquette, a spokeswoman for the Snowshoe Mountain Ski Resort, said smartphone-addicted visitors from Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va. feel either relieved or shipwrecked upon realizing their phones are useless.
“You see people walking around holding the cellphone up trying to get the signal, like it’s going to come down to you from the sky,” Parquette said.
Some locals grow impatient with radio silence. Malinda Meck and her husband looked into buying ham radios to communicate with employees at their construction company during the day, but the radios the observatory approved were too expensive, Meck said.
“In some ways, I don’t even think about it because I’ve always lived here and that’s just the way it is,” Meck said. “But there are some times when it’s very frustrating because you need to get a hold of someone immediately, and it’s impossible.”
Wireless Internet is one of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s biggest headaches in the telescopes’ immediate area. The local telephone and cable provider said it doesn’t provide wireless modems to the approximately 300 customers in the 10-mile radius, but observatory business manager Michael Holstine said residents buy them elsewhere.
The sources of interference have grown more diverse as wireless technology has become more pervasive. Even car gauges that transmit information about tire pressure to the dashboard cause interference, Holstine said.
White pickup trucks jammed with laptops and signal reading equipment help track down errant signals, such as the one that came from Ryder’s Restaurant earlier this spring.
“The cable guy and Mr. Sizemore were out back, and they had their machines and whatever,” said Paula Ryder, the restaurant owner. “I went out to see what was going on and I got a little nasty with them.”
Inside, technician Wesley Sizemore found the staff had run a lead from their cable television down through the antenna of an old radio to pick up a signal for their favorite FM station, which doesn’t come in so close to the observatory. The jury-rigged arrangement was unintentionally rebroadcasting the cable signals, Sizemore said.
“We purchased them a brand new radio, and I went and installed it for them, took the old one and destroyed it, and they’re happy,” Sizemore said, noting that he connected the new radio to the cable system so it worked without leaking cable transmissions. “We could have been hard-nosed and said, ‘You have to get rid of this; it’s an illegal transmitter.’ But you don’t want to do that in a local population.”
In 28 years with the observatory, Sizemore has seen interference from an electric fence equipped with a timer to keep deer out of a garden at night, a chewed-through electric blanket that kept a dog warm in his doghouse and an elementary school thermostat.
“The energy released by a single snowflake landing on the ground is more energy than has been received from space by all radiotelescopes on the face of the earth since the beginning of radioastronomy,” Sizemore said. “That’s the thing that you have to wrap your brain around.”
Holstine said the observatory turns down nine applications for every one it approves to use the Green Bank Telescope, one of the world’s most powerful radiotelescopes. Its 100-meter surface can detect radio waves that have traveled billions of light-years through space, but even operating a digital camera too close to the telescope can overwhelm the faint signals.
“You get a signal, and it looks like just what you’re looking for,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, which has used the Green Bank Telescope to search for extraterrestrial life. Interference “makes a thicket of jungle that you’ve got to hack your way through to find the signal that isn’t being produced by Homo sapiens.”
— Ashley Kindergan
