United States National Radio Quiet Zone | Hacker News Reader

United States National Radio Quiet Zone

en.wikipedia.org

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Fun fact: they only drive diesels around the antenna dish because spark plugs cause interference.

Not just interference, but really annoyingly broad-band interference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter

Optical astronomy had a great thing going in the days when most light pollution came from low-pressure sodium vapor lamps—that's comparatively easy to filter out. Radio astronomy isn't so lucky.

Also, microwave ovens require an additional housing to block interference.

Interestingly, driving through the area, I could still pickup a decent amount of FM radio stations, not very well, but definitely not static.

Yea- and Wifi can be had a lot closer than I expected. It’s one of my favorite places to visit. I love how the big dish is just kinda stalking the barns.

"The Adventure Zone" role-playing podcast set one of their seasons inside this zone, which gave an elegant narrative reason to remove cell-phones from the story.

I've spent some time in the zone. There's cell phone service in a good bit of it, but it's not great.

Any Sasquatch?

Was surprised to see this on hackerne.ws as I’m just re-listening to Amnesty right now.

I was at the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico a couple years ago. It had a similar "turn off your phones and radios" sign and radio silence perimeter. They have tourists and a gift shop, so it's not as locked down as a military base.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array

Is is just a sign or is there a formal quiet area enforced by law? I couldn't find anything designating a formal restriction on radio, but I'd be interested in reading about it if there is one. As far as I am aware, the NRQZ is unique in the US.

Back in November I went to Green Bank. 'Outside the wire' (their fence) there really isn't much other than a few signs. Inside the fence they allow nothing but diesel vehicles, phones had to be shut off or if they couldn't they had a faraday cage for them. They do have a truck that hunts down stray RF signals. They shared w/ us that they have found broken electric tooth brushes (which they replaced for free) among the normal stuff that puts out RF. So while it's not RF 'free' (there's cell signal outside the fence area), it is RF reduced. They know of all the signals in the area and filter them out of the results. Really neat place to visit.

That makes me wonder about electric vehicles, though they'd certainly disallow something like a Tesla since they constantly transmit cellular data.

Electric vehicles emit large amounts of RF from their inverter circuits. If you ever have the chance, try turning on an AM radio while driving in one - you’ll get a very loud and surreal serenade.

Older DC-DC based electric vehicles without inverters ought to be okay.

Don't DC motors have a lot of commutator noise?

Nice article about the area: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32758042

I do also recall an episode of their TV show Click (technology based news show) that covered some form of enforcement that saw a patrol that would monitor and locate (via triangulation) and radio interference - be that leaky microwaves etc.

[EDIT ADD] I think I found the episode of Click in question, though it appear unavailable https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08450vk

Tom Scott went there a few years ago - and in the outer part of the zone, there really isn't a problem having your phone & WiFi turned on. I imagine if you're causing interference, their radio-direction-finding team will pay you a visit. But generally it seems to be much like anywhere else in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64pYTYx_6eU

The National Radio Quiet Zone is not locked down either. There is a public road through Greenbank and the observatory there a very cool visitor center. I can recommend both the coffee and the tours they offer there. The office space for the observatory next door has a locked door, but it is not "as locked down as a military base" by a long shot.

The NRQZ is definitely not locked down, and it's lot bigger than Greenbank too. It's not a super populated region, but it's 13,000 square miles. It is larger than 9 states.

This area is how I realized I must have an Intel modem in my iPhone: after being on airplane mode as I traversed it, I couldn’t pick up any reception for some time after.

I assumed at first it was because I was still in a mountainous area, but finally realized the modem was never going to reconnect, and had to power cycle my phone.

Could you clarify what Intel has to do with it?

Just that the Intel modems had a reputation for being more trouble-prone than Qualcomm.

Now that I look back, however, I think I was wrong. I was probably on Verizon on the iPhone X, which would have been Qualcomm.

No microwave ovens, either.

The GBT is crazy big.. It somehow doesn't look real. A football stadium, suspended over a farm. The weirdest sculpture garden I've ever visited.

Microwaves are fine they just require additional shielding.

Wow, this is the place to go to really disconnect. I wonder what would happen if you fly a drone over the zone :p

A lot of military and civilian signals intelligence outposts are out there, so they probably wouldn’t be so happy

From Edward Snowden's book I learned a lot of people living there work for the government as well.

It depends on where in the silence zone you are (I live in the NRSZ). There are increasingly strict zones the closer you get to the Observatory. Unless you were flying your drone close to the observatory itself, it's never been a problem. Folks in town have WiFi as well. Although the authorities can shut it down if they needed to, they're generally hands off unless it's a problem.

It’s my favorite place to camp. I’m sure it’s all in my head but it feels more serene than some other places.

I love the "Cone of Silence" reference toward the bottom of the Wikipedia page. I wonder how long it will last...

The article doesn't mention it, but there's many people who moved to this rectangle because they are (believe or actually are) hypersensitive to radio transmissions.

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