Paul Kranzler & Andrew Phelps

When the United States government decided to build a “National Radio Astronomy Observatory” in the 1950’s, it chose the small community of Green Bank in Pocahontas County, West Virginia as its site. Radio telescopes are highly sensitive and disturbed by any form of radio activity such as wifi, radio stations, cell-towers and all forms of electro magnetic energy. A “National Radio Quiet Zone”, free of electromagnetic interference was established in Pocahontas County specifically because of its sparse population and lack of massive industry. The establishment of the observatory rendered this region into an essentially tech-free zone.
The telescopes draw the top astro-physicists and astronomers from around the world to this remote region of West Virginia where they live side by side with local families which have been in this Appalachian Mountain area for hundreds of years. Often living on land which their ancestors claimed as wilder- ness frontier in the mid 1700’s, many of these homesteads still practice the traditions of cattle farming, deer and bear hunting and maple syrup harvesting.
Over the past decades with cellphones and wi-fi techno- logy has entered mainstream life in the US, many people are moving into the area exactly for the reason that it is wi-fi free. So called, electromagnetic hypersensitives are people suffering allergic reactions to radio frequencies associated with wi-fi and mobile technology. The region, which has officially been defined by the FCC as “radio free” offers relief to people trying to flee radio and wi-fi signals which are found in any other populated area of the country.