The NRQZ is centered between the Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, and Sugar Grove Station in Sugar Grove, West Virginia. It straddles the borders of Virginia and West Virginia, and also includes a sliver of Maryland. The Quiet Zone is an approximate rectangle of land, 107miles on the north edge, 109.6miles on the south edge and 120.9miles on the east and west edges, comprising approximately 13000sqmi. Roughly half of the zone is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of west-central Virginia while the other half is the Allegheny Mountains of east-central West Virginia a small part of the zone is in the southernmost tip of the Maryland panhandle. The National Radio Quiet Zone ( NRQZ) is a large area of land in the United States designated as a radio quiet zone, in which radio transmissions are heavily restricted by law to facilitate scientific research and the gathering of military intelligence. Another idea was to pile an enormous dirt mound behind the school to essentially shield Wi-Fi from radiating toward the telescopes.United States National Radio Quiet Zone Explained
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Ruth Bland, the county’s technology director and former school principal, had discussed options with the observatory, with one idea being to install Li-Fi, which emits low-range wireless internet through lightbulbs. When the elementary-middle school got wired internet, the observatory hooked it up.īut now that the rest of Green Bank was going wireless-remember those nearly 200 Wi-Fi signals the observatory had counted in the town?-the elementary-middle school wanted to join the revolution. When the high school needed a new sound system, an observatory engineer helped install it. Another observatory engineer helped teach the high school’s college-credit coding class and coach its robotics club, which in 2020 placed second in a statewide competition.
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Green Bank Elementary-Middle School’s robotics club was coached by the observatory’s director, an astrophysicist, and her husband, a software engineer the club placed first in the 2018 West Virginia First Lego League tournament, earning a world championship berth. Two Female Birds Gave a Researcher Studying Them a Big Surprise The One Part of Facebook’s “Meta” Reveal You Shouldn’t Laugh At Ross Douthat, Conservative Pundit, Is Actually Exactly What the Chronic Lyme “Debate” Needs High schoolers interned at the observatory, which in turn sent its staff to assist in schools. Boy Scouts came to earn merit badges in radio astronomy. Every year, an estimated 5,000 students from around the region toured the telescopes, many for multiday immersion seminars. Moreover, the observatory brought cutting-edge science into Appalachia and made it accessible to youths. The same year, Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s former vice president of user growth, was quoted in the New Yorker saying Facebook was “destroying how society works-no civil discourse, no coöperation, misinformation, mistruth.” He said his children were “not allowed to use this shit.”įor Pocahontas, the lack of cell service and restrictions on Wi-Fi were arguably blessings in disguise, allowing for distraction-free spaces that could aid concentration. She did not allow her kids to have cellphones until high school. “I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children,” Athena Chavarria, a former executive assistant at Facebook, told the New York Times in 2018. The alarm bells are even ringing in Silicon Valley, of all places.