Is Utopia Quiet

WIRED -- As John Geirland explains in Wired¹, a unique combination of geography and legislation has rendered 13,000 square miles of rustic communities and mountainous terrain free of the emissions from the electromagnetic spectrum. It's a utopian dreamland for those opposed to mobile phone masts. It's a federally mandated Quiet Zone surrounding the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, a 485-foot, 17 million-pound structure that emerges improbably from a remote valley in Pocahantas County, West Virginia (population 8,996). Astronomers here observe the universe by studying faint radio waves emitted by stars, evaporating comets and distant galaxies.

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¹John Geirland -- "[The Quiet Zone] in Wired, February 2004.
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