Posted on 05/20/2012 9:16:53 AM PDT by Brandonmark
Edited on 05/20/2012 11:01:36 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
While most of us are inundated by sounds of all kinds, folks in one Appalachian region are "zoning out" ... enjoying a rare enclave of serenity. Richard Schlesinger of "48 Hours" has paid them a visit:
For anyone who's ever been bothered by the loud ring of a cellphone, or a loud-mouth on a cell phone . . . there's an island of tranquility, if you will, in the West Virginia mountains.
Here, most gadgets that transmit aren't just unwelcome, they're BANNED by the federal government.
People do live here - they're just hard to reach.
Linda Taylor lives in Green Bank. It's in the middle of a 13,000-square mile swath of the state that in 1958 was declared by the FCC the National Radio Quiet Zone.
No Bluetooth, no Blackberries. "Can't use cell phones, you can't use wireless," said Taylor.
No problem if you're from here. But Taylor has to adjust when she LEAVES the Quiet Zone.
"It is weird because, like, if I'm out at a restaurant or something and at the beach and my phone rings, I'm like, 'What is that?' And it's my phone," she told Schlesinger. "So it is weird in certain aspects."
The Quiet Zone was set up to protect the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a very large and very sensitive radio telescope listening for the faintest of signals from space.
Excerpt, read more at cbsnews
Technology made it obsolete for the spooks, but the RA types found it useful.
You do know that in the 1980s, it collapsed?
The then, now deceased, senior senator from WV got it rebuilt.
Oh, and its official name, surprise surprise, is now the "Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope".
According to WIKI: "Not all radio transmissions are prohibited in the Radio Quiet Zone. For example Citizen's Band radios, police and ambulance radios, and fire department radios are used there. However, large radio transmitter owners must typically coordinate their operations with representatives of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the U.S. Department of Defense. The Allegheny Mountain Radio company operates the only broadcast radio stations in the inner core of the Quiet Zone, with just one station in the AM band, and several low-power FM stations. Most radio transmitters within the area are licensed by the FCC (just as they are in the rest of the United States). Exceptions to the Radio Quiet Zone restrictions are usually determined on a case-by-case basis, with preference given to public safety concerns, such as remote alarm systems, repeaters for first responders, and NOAA Weather Radio. Due to the restrictions, the area has attracted people who believe they suffer from Electromagnetic hypersensitivity.[3]"
When was that picture taken?
Greenbank from Cass Railroad.
Cass Railroad steam engine. Beautiful ride up a steep mountain.
So, now the media is laying a foundation that we don't need communication devices?
They will pry my radios from my cold dead hands.
Other than CBSCNNABCNBCNYTimesWaPoLATimesNPR, yes.
/sarc
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