No Spark Plugs Allowed

The NRAO Green Bank is in a unique position of residing at the center of the only Radio Quiet Reservation in the world. The Reservation is several hundred miles wide both north/south and east/west. All transmitters on the Reservation must be configured so that their antenna patterns are effectively zero in the direction of the Zero Point, where the Green Bank facility is located. There are no commercial radio stations that can be received nor cell phones that operate near the Zero Point. The purpose is to reduce as much as possible all stray radio signals that could interfere with the extremely low power extraterrestrial radio signals.

In addition, no vehicles are allowed too close to the telescopes that can give off RFI (radio frequency interference). This includes engines with spark plugs.

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You won't see a sign like this just anywhere. No gasoline or electric motor vehicles are allowed past this point, the entrance of the Zero Point region where all the radio telescopes are located.

Blue Bertha is an old Checkers taxicab with a diesel engine. She is one of several on campus that anyone can use to enter the Zero Point region, where all the reflector dishes are located. Alternatively, one can use one of the single speed bicycles that are provided for use at the Green Bank facilities.

Back to SFJ's Summer 2003 NRAO Green Bank gallery.

Last Updated June 25, 2003.
© 2003 Stevens F. Johnson and the Dept. of Physics/Science, Bemidji State University. All rights are reserved unless explicitly stated otherwise.