
United States National Radio Quiet Zone - sib
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone
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leetrout
Fun fact: they only drive diesels around the antenna dish because spark plugs
cause interference.

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dillonmckay
Also, microwave ovens require an additional housing to block interference.

Interestingly, driving through the area, I could still pickup a decent amount
of FM radio stations, not very well, but definitely not static.

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leetrout
Yea- and Wifi can be had a lot closer than I expected. It’s one of my favorite
places to visit. I love how the big dish is just kinda stalking the barns.

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ortusdux
"The Adventure Zone" role-playing podcast set one of their seasons inside this
zone, which gave an elegant narrative reason to remove cell-phones from the
story.

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kube-system
I've spent some time in the zone. There's cell phone service in a good bit of
it, but it's not great.

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ortusdux
Any Sasquatch?

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droithomme
The article doesn't mention it, but there's many people who moved to this
rectangle because they are (believe or actually are) hypersensitive to radio
transmissions.

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adamdecaf
I was at the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico a couple years ago. It had a
similar "turn off your phones and radios" sign and radio silence perimeter.
They have tourists and a gift shop, so it's not as locked down as a military
base.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array)

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kube-system
Is is just a sign or is there a formal quiet area enforced by law? I couldn't
find anything designating a formal restriction on radio, but I'd be interested
in reading about it if there is one. As far as I am aware, the NRQZ is unique
in the US.

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hkchad
Back in November I went to Green Bank. 'Outside the wire' (their fence) there
really isn't much other than a few signs. Inside the fence they allow nothing
but diesel vehicles, phones had to be shut off or if they couldn't they had a
faraday cage for them. They do have a truck that hunts down stray RF signals.
They shared w/ us that they have found broken electric tooth brushes (which
they replaced for free) among the normal stuff that puts out RF. So while it's
not RF 'free' (there's cell signal outside the fence area), it is RF reduced.
They know of all the signals in the area and filter them out of the results.
Really neat place to visit.

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Causality1
That makes me wonder about electric vehicles, though they'd certainly disallow
something like a Tesla since they constantly transmit cellular data.

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anticensor
Older DC-DC based electric vehicles without inverters ought to be okay.

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kube-system
Don't DC motors have a lot of commutator noise?

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macintux
This area is how I realized I must have an Intel modem in my iPhone: after
being on airplane mode as I traversed it, I couldn’t pick up any reception for
some time after.

I assumed at first it was because I was still in a mountainous area, but
finally realized the modem was never going to reconnect, and had to power
cycle my phone.

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thih9
Could you clarify what Intel has to do with it?

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macintux
Just that the Intel modems had a reputation for being more trouble-prone than
Qualcomm.

Now that I look back, however, I think I was wrong. I was probably on Verizon
on the iPhone X, which would have been Qualcomm.

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watersb
No microwave ovens, either.

The GBT is crazy big.. It somehow doesn't look real. A football stadium,
suspended over a farm. The weirdest sculpture garden I've ever visited.

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pc86
Microwaves are fine they just require additional shielding.

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mkchoi212
Wow, this is the place to go to really disconnect. I wonder what would happen
if you fly a drone over the zone :p

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radicaldreamer
A lot of military and civilian signals intelligence outposts are out there, so
they probably wouldn’t be so happy

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Fnoord
From Edward Snowden's book I learned a lot of people living there work for the
government as well.

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neurobashing
It’s my favorite place to camp. I’m sure it’s all in my head but it feels more
serene than some other places.

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anonymousiam
I love the "Cone of Silence" reference toward the bottom of the Wikipedia
page. I wonder how long it will last...

