Green Bank: The Town Where WiFi Is Restricted, West Virginia

In the mountains of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, about 141 people live in the shadow of one of the biggest machines on Earth. In 1958, the Federal Communications Commission created the National Radio Quiet Zone, about 13,000 square miles across West Virginia, Virginia and a corner of Maryland. The goal was to protect sensitive radio receivers, including the telescopes at Green Bank, from human-made interference. In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake presented his famous Drake Equation, an estimate of how many alien civilizations might be out there, at a meeting in Green Bank. Radio telescopes listen for extremely faint signals from space, and ordinary electronics can drown them out. So the rules get stricter the closer you get. Big broadcast transmitters across the zone have to coordinate with the observatory. State law regulates transmitters within 10 miles, with the tightest limits inside the closest 2 miles. On the observatory grounds, Wi-Fi, cordless phones and even digital cameras are restricted, and staff drive diesel vehicles because gasoline engines’ spark plugs give off radio noise. The centerpiece is the Green Bank Telescope. It replaced an earlier 300-foot telescope that collapsed in 1988, and it saw first light in 2000. Its dish is 100 meters across, it stands 485 feet tall, and it weighs about 16 million pounds, yet the whole thing can turn to point anywhere in the sky. It’s the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world. Life in town is less strict than the legend. Enforcement has relaxed, Wi-Fi is common, and a 2019 count found about 175 hotspots within two miles of the telescope. Still, cell service is scarce, and the quiet has drawn some unusual newcomers, including people who believe they’re sensitive to electromagnetic signals.