The Quiet Zone

[Ray McCarthy]

The programme on BBC R4 was good.

It's like something out of an SF novel.

This is the National Radio Quiet Zone - 13,000 square miles (34,000 sq km) of radio silence. What is it for and how long will it survive?
As we drive into the Allegheny Mountains the car radio fades to static. I glance at my mobile phone but the signal has disappeared.
Ahead of us a dazzling white saucer looms above the wooded terrain of West Virginia, getting bigger and bigger with every mile. It's the planet's largest land-based movable object - the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) - 2.3 acres in surface area, and taller than the Statue of Liberty.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32758042

What becomes of the Quiet Zone in the 21st Century depends to some extent, on the future of the GBT. The site costs $14.5m (£9.2m) a year to run - and the National Science Foundation which finances it has warned it may reduce its contribution significantly by 2017.

 

[Remedy]

I read that this morning, very interesting.

I bet life is good there.

 

[BAYLOR]

Sounds like paradise.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

One really really strong solar flare ...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's a shame on the Radio program they wasted air time interviewing a so called Electromagnetic Sensitive, who disgustingly was allowed to compare it to Leprosy.

Electromagnetic Sensitivity seems to be imaginary, as in double blind tests the people claiming it did no better in deciding if a transmitter was on or off than guessing.

Leprosy is a real disease.