The Town Where Wi-Fi Is Banned: The Green Bank Telescope and the Quiet Zone 

that radio telescope looks like it's in need of some anti-aliasing.

Why is the snowy hill behind Tom so badly pixelated?

And no, before anyone asks, I absolutely was not allowed onto the dish itself. Nearly got sunburn from it, though, it reflects a lot of light...!

Alternate title: "The Green Bank Telescope and the 'Shut Up, I'm Listening For Aliens' Zone"

Wow, great video Tom! That software engineer you interviewed at 2:23 seems like a pretty awesome guy. I wish I had a job like that.

A software engineer meeting up with friends? Ha! Good one.

Do police use soup cans and string to communicate with each other?

I love how they gave you a Red helmet.

"Previously, on the Adventure Zone..."

Country road, please don't take me home. There's no wifi there.

I've been there, with SARA (Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers) once. Quite a place. Fun fact: the reason the GBT has block edges is that each intersection is attached to a linear actuator, this allows the scope to distort itself into different patterns. There is a lounge outside of the no-spark region, and a checker cab as well as a volvo used going inside the sparkless zone.

I actually find myself in this area quite frequently. There's a very popular ski resort named Snowshoe about 10 miles away from this observatory that I visit numerous times every winter. It's quite challenging dealing with meetups, like trying to find friends after you've split up on the slopes. Like the programmer said in this video, it's all about planning to meet at certain locations at certain times.

can't believe they made TAZ Amnesty into a real thing

Can't believe you came out to WV, wish I could have met up with you. One of the more interesting bits left out of the video was how they deal with winter conditions. They move the dish into a near-vertical "Snowplow mode" so that all the snow and ice will slide off, rather than have someone climb up and shovel 2 acres of sloped surface.

i used to live in the panhandle of wv and my brother was able to go there for 2 weeks learning all about the satellite and other astronomy stuff. he says it was one of the coolest things he ever did. When i went with my family to pick him up, we got a tour of the facility and it definitely was one of the greatest things i have ever seen. and that was 6 years ago.

Spark plugs cause RF interference. This is something I actually didn't know.

"My name is Ryan Lynch, and I'm a science."

"The wireless genie is out of the bottle" - that's actually quite the neat quote...

It's actually ridiculous, the amount of reliably good content this channel puts out on a weekly basis. Great work, Tom!

Something even more interesting is a town nearby here that is called Cass. It is owned by the state and has a steam powered railway that you can ride to the 2nd highest point in West Virginia and you can see the Green Bank Radio Telescope from it. Yes, I visited both places.

I've been there! It was super cool. I was part of a college team using one of the smaller telescopes to measure the curve of the galaxy's disk. It was so quiet... And at night, you can actually see the Milky Way in the sky, along with so many stars you'd never see anywhere near a city! It's also super cool going into their computer rooms -- they have basically a Faraday cage airlock, where you have to go in one big shielded door, lock it, and then open the other door to get into the room, and reverse of that to get out. Without your phone, you just gotta go to a computer if you want to contact anyone!

0:31 looks like the engineers blueprints were extremely low res when they built it

I got to visit this place as a field trip with the scholars program at U Maryland! It is amazing and MASSIVE. No photos can do it justice. We were lucky enough to get to sleep over and actually use their smaller radio telescopes to look for hydrogen in the milky way! Super cool, and the people there were very friendly and informative. A lot of people also had bikes to ride around the base in so as to reduce interference.

Re: no cellphone, I went for about 6 months without a phone a few years ago and honestly, I found it kind of liberating. Once I left work, I couldn't be reached until I was at home on wifi. Meeting with friends required setting a place and time. It really wasn't a big deal at all.

I noticed many of you were wearing lapel mics. Normally, this would be just be connected to a transmitter pack, and transmitted to a receiver over RF. How do these not cause issues for the dish?

I pass by this telescope on the way to snowshoe to go skiing every winter. It is always a head turner and very fascinating. Thanks for shedding some light on these “no signals” rumors I’ve always heard about that place.

I love that they didn’t just tell the doghouse guy that he has to get a new one. they actually bought him one instead

shout-out to the adventure zone amnesty!

The structure of the dish is playing tricks with me. It makes the shadows look pixalated. Like you are in front of a giant green screen and just added in some older video game in the background.

love from Huntington, West Virginia..LOVE YOUR SHOW!!

Dear Ryan Lynch, How do I become a member of Science?

Hardest part of taking calls from West Virginia, explaining to people why they can't get Wi-Fi where they are at, if they are near that telescope.

It is really nice to see a video about the Observatory that gives correct information! Good job! Glad you enjoyed your visit here.

There are tours available to the public, and they drive you around the dishes (that's the main radio-telescope in the facility, but not the only one). However, mere mortals don't get to be that close to the main dish. Normally, you are not even allowed to bring in a photo camera into the observatory area, let alone a video camera or a cellphone. I've been told that even a conventional film camera has enough unshielded electronics (photometer, auto-focus) to cause interference. Disposable film cameras are ok. My understanding was that microwave ovens are actually allowed in-town but they need to be well built, properly electrically shielded, and are checked periodically. Also, as I understand, the staff hunts for old diesel vehicles in good condition; modern ones have too many electronically-controlled this-and-that. AM/FM receivers and other sources of electric noise are typically removed.

If they are outfitted like FCC trucks they can use the Doppler effect to get the bearing of a signal just by driving. What used to take three trucks can now be done with one. Handheld direction finders switch a scanner between a pair of antennas a couple of hundred times a second. If the antennas are not both pointed directly at the source you hear the switching as a tone. You just rotate your hand until the tone disappears and that's your direction.

Shows like yours and Atlas Obscura are quickly becoming my favorite channels if not just for how composed and informative they are. With great production quality as well it's like watching the Discovery Channel back when it actually inspired interest in things like this.

I've been there! (And yes, up the telescope, too!). Tom, did you know a few miles from the NRAO / GBT, the National Youth Science Camp program has been held every summer since 1963? I'm a big fan of your talks, I think you should check it out and consider giving a talk or directed study there!

Duck Newton sends his regards.

“Hello Earth Scientist! I need to borrow your corporeal hands for a minute!”

0:14 Me: Wow, that mountain is really pixelated...

The thing about the diesel cars being the only ones allowed is interesting... I wonder if electro-cars have a bigger/lower impact than the gasoline spark plugs... (probably more:/).

Damn! I am a huge fan, Tom. I wish I had known you were coming to Green Bank! I am normally in Guatemala, but my house in the US is about 400 from the NRAO Green Bank main entrance. And I have always found it hilarious to watch visitors twitch when they have smart phone withdrawal. Wish I could have met you.

4:09 Chuck McGill should've just moved here

I live in West Virginia. I really appreciate this video.

I believe that an interstate highway, which I believe I was on once going to Virginia Tech for a visit, passes through the Quiet Zone. Cell phones work, but cell reception is very weak. Blacksburg is located just outside the zone, but gets 3G instead of LTE.

Why is the quiet zone a square? Isn't that like, not how radio signals work? If they don't want any interference above a certain "volume", then it should be a circle, all points within a certain radius. Radio waves don't care about which ways is north or west.

One of the main reasons I hated driving through WV as a truck driver. Nothing but dead space. Dont miss it. Nice landscape though.

The part about diesel only is pretty awesome; great stuff.

I lived about an hour away from here for 10 years, it’s a really cool place

When I saw the thumbnail with all the white behind you I thought this was another video from your Arctic trip!

I am lucky enough to have seen this thing in person, it truly is completely marvelous how big this thing is. Granted that was back in about 2007 or so when IoT wasn't a thing, and I'm not sure I even had a cell phone. We visited the museum there and went around to the various telescopes in a tour bus, we got within maybe 200 yards of the big one but even from there it completely towered over anything in the surroundings.

I do wonder if anyone has given a visible representation of what the world would like if you can see radio signals

I just want to ad that the guards are really nice and sometimes replace equipment for free that cause interference

This is so cool! That's another place in the list of places I want to work then.... I loved the quality of your video Tom! I especially liked that you talked to a woman there; it hadn't occurred to me how important representation is before, but it was kind of reassuring to see her, since I want to go into that field when I leave college.

I wonder if Tom stopped by Kepler? 🤔

Coolest thing I've seen or heard of in at least the last 2 decades. Thank you Mr.Scott for your "Amazing places" series. 💛

TAZ: Amnesty gang please tell me one of you is here

subscribed because you actually have proper captioning that enable I to enjoy your video, thank you.

I live a few miles from Jodrell Bank in the UK - which now has the 3rd largest fully steerable radio telescope. When visiting you are reminded to turn off your phone and I know there is a zone around the telescope where they get some say into what can and can't be built there, but there doesn't seem to be a very large quiet zone extending miles into the surrounding area. I do remember, however, one of the workers there telling a story that several years ago they suddenly noticed a lot of interference at the 1 to 1.5 GHz range. Turned out they had just upgraded several computers in their centre which weren't well shielded enough - their own computers with at the time 1-1.5GHz processors were causing the interference.

The top of the Telescope needs some anti aliasing :p

While I don't claim to be sensitive to elctromagnetic emissions or anything, I did live just a few meters away from being under some big power lines for a couple years and it was hell. I did get more headaches there and have more trouble sleeping just because of the constant audible noise. So the literal quiet of the quiet zone sounds very nice.

So cooooooooooooooool And the timelapse at the end was beautiful, was that matts idea or yours? :p

Great video Tom. I've not seen anyone cover this spot as deeply as you have. Usually they talk about the weirdos that live there

Some people are actually moving into the quiet zone because of desire to be away from the radio interference.

Wow, I just subscribed and started watching your videos and you're already making a visit to my home state haha

any guy wearing a tshirt that says 'moab brewery' without irony is my kinda guy

Another great concise video Tom! Love them!

So if you want a microwave, you'll need to turn your house into a faraday cage?

Well done. I visited the observatory a few years ago.

What about pacemakers?

Thanks to Tom and his crew for all these informative videos.

TAZ: Amnesty

OMG, that story the guy told about the heating pad in the dog house, I heard that on a tour of the observatory... About 1985.

Every licensed American radio amateur knows about the National Radio Quiet Zone, but they might not know about what goes on there. Thanks for the info Tom! K7IVO

Its wild that I'm going to this area tomorrow

"We have to plan in advance." haha, like people did for hundreds of years. Cells are great, but they're not ESSENTIAL if you plan things. Good on him.

The lady in the anechoic chamber has a very pleasing voice

People “allergic” to wifi are absolutely insane

Similar to the big optical telescopes and light pollution... There's even a town (can't for the life remember the name or where it was, Germany o think though) where they've adapted what little lighting they have to point down w/a shield over the top of lamppost, streetlights etc... It's a great idea and working well.

Before anyone asks, yes, I was there one time and got a tour of this place. Oh, and yes, I did see a bear along a country road near here.

I have regularly traveled into the 100mi exclusion zone and never knew. Can't say i knew of the observatory, though I've known about the listening post since I was a little kid.

Also its interesting that WLAN as we know it today owes its existence to a bunch of radio astronomers that were also working on one the largest radio telescope arrays in the world.

The more I watch your videos, the more I realise what an awesome job you have. Thanks for sharing!

Anyone else here from TAZ Amnesty

Going here this year for a college trip! This is gonna be fun

4:15 well every feeling is in your head really.. now leeches those you can feel on your skin.

Whoa! That's quite some sensor if you can detect RFI from sparking inside a heater for a dog house

I'm surprised they let people film that close to it. I'd think it would pick up the RFI from your camera.

So the TV Licence vans that scan for your TV signal do exist. But they're about 4000 miles away, so I think we're good.

Wonder if those lavalier microphones we can see are wireless or not... ha!

That telescope is a literal dictator

got this vid recommended when watching taz amnesty ,,, they know

Another interesting thing about the Green Bank Telescope is that it is the largest moving land object... in the world.

They probably use LAN to see this Video :P

At the very beginning I was like why is the back ground texture not loading

"Spraying signal everywhere" idk why but that made me giggle.

I lived in Morgantown. Use to come down here all the time with my dad for trips alot of military activity there it's something to see. The roads are banked so they can drive at higher speeds in emergencies.

Of course Tom is wearing a red hardhat.

'A rectangle roughly 100 miles on each side' - shows a square.

Isn't a rectangle that's a hundred miles on each side a square?'