Anon knew about this town of Green Bank, West Virginia having no wifi, cellphones, or radio by law. Have been reading postings here, and elsewhere, of a link between the virus and 5G. So anon decide to go have a look at the COVID19 map. And guess what? Nothing, for Pocahontas County. And the surrounding counties numbers have pretty low numbers of infections too. Apparently, Green Bank and it's county have no infections reported. Probably a little soon to say for sure. But it sure does make one wonder about the 5G argument.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
WiFi Is Illegal in This American Town. (And Yes, People Actually Live There.)
The town of Green Bank, West Virginia, is home to a super powerful telescope that needs electromagnetic silence to do its important research. But is that even possible anymore?
….What is here, though, is one of the world’s most important facilities for the understanding of our universe.
Right off of the road and nestled in a valley naturally protected by the Allegheny Mountains is the Green Bank Observatory. It opened in 1958 as the United States’ first national astronomy observatory and remains today a crucial facility in the field of radio astronomy with a number of active telescopes, including the world’s largest steerable radio telescope, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, or GBT.
Over the last six-plus decades, the discoveries made at this observatory have come to define astronomy. Here, telescopes have found black holes, pulsars, radiation belts, and gravitational waves. Just last month, researchers at the GBO uncovered the most massive neutron star ever detected.
Green Bank is also where serious search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) research was born. In 1960, Frank Drake started Project Ozma here, the first U.S. government-funded attempt to listen for extraterrestrial intelligence. It’s also where he wrote his famed equation about the possibility of worlds other than ours. And SETI work is still ongoing at Green Bank. Earlier this year, one million gigabytes of SETI data collected over the last three years was released to the public, making it the largest trove ever of its kind.
All of this has been accomplished simply by listening closely and deeply to the sky above this beautiful, rural town.
But to do this crucial work, compromises have to be made. “The signals we detect from space are extremely faint,” says Harshal Gupta, the National Science Foundation program officer for the Green Bank Observatory. “A source of close-by, man-made radio frequency can completely overwhelm these very faint signals from space.” Meaning, any radio frequency interference (RFI) could corrupt that research.
In order to limit RFI, the Federal Communications Commission in 1958 established the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) covering approximately 13,000 square miles and parts of both Virginia and West Virginia. In the mid-20th century, this meant no radio towers, television antennas, or heavy machinery could be installed unless they met very restrictive guidelines set forth by the FCC (like highly directional antennas and reduced power). It also prohibited private citizens from operating their own radio equipment, like ham radios, within the zone.
An even more strict law was put on the books by the West Virginia Legislature. The state’s Radio Astronomy Zoning Act of 1956 says it’s “illegal to operate or cause to be operated any electrical equipment within a two-mile radius of… any radio astronomy facility.” Similar tight restrictions also applied up to 10 miles from the facility.
Sixty-one years later, both the NRQZ and the Radio Astronomy Zoning Act are still in effect. But we no longer live in the 1950s.
2019 is filled with cell phones, Wi-Fi, satellite television, electronic tire pressure systems, cars with hotspots, smart refrigerators, video doorbells, Bluetooth headphones, app-powered Nikes, and toothbrushes that use wireless technology to give you a better smile. Our modern world is nearly always and completely connected by wireless internet, 4G (and, soon, 5G), and Bluetooth capabilities. These days, it’s all RFI, all the time.
Yet, in Green Bank, all of this is illegal in the name of science and discovery……
Long article.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/telescopes/a29589714/town-wifi-illegal/