Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. A man with Down syndrome tries the impossible, the grand slam in turkey hunting. Four 53 hits, we're legal shooting light. And he gives us this one last test.
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And he pitches off. And when he pitches off, he flies right into the gun barrel. I said to the cameraman, do you have him? He said, shoot him. I said, Justin, shoot. You can download this episode and others from Lines and Tines with Spencer Graves on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. And we're being really quiet here on Stuff You Should Know because we're doing an episode on the National Radio Quiet Zone. We're not a radio show. We're a podcast, but we feel in solidarity that we should be quiet too.
That's right. And we're not talking about Palm Springs with their oppressive ban on outdoor music.
Oh, I hadn't heard about that.
Yeah. You can't play music outside, like by your pool.
Huh.
At all? Supposedly at all.
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Chapter 2: What is the National Radio Quiet Zone and why is it important?
The delicate telescopes, radio telescopes used in radio astronomy at a specific place called Green Bank, West Virginia. They've established a whole zone around it that's meant to block out or keep out radio transmissions so that the astronomers can go about their business happily.
That's right. And to be clear, when you say radio transmissions, you're not talking about Casey Kasem's American Top 40.
Right.
Because we don't have a time machine and we're not going to exhume Casey Kasem.
They still play those like old ones on some radio stations on Saturday or Sunday. It's a great way to pass some time if you're driving.
I've stumbled upon those, and it is a nice time capsule for sure. But you're talking about radio waves, and we're going to explain kind of about what radio astronomy is and all that. In fact, we can go ahead and do that right now. Because in 1932, there was an engineer at Bell Labs named Carl Jansky who noticed some static interfering with some communications going across the pond, as they say.
got together with an astronomer over coffee, and they said, you know what? I don't think this is interference coming from here on Earth. I think it's coming from out in the Milky Way galaxy. And this was a big deal in 1932.
They were like, there are literal celestial bodies emitting radio waves out there, and we need to start studying these and measuring these, and we're going to call it radio astronomy.
Yeah. All of a sudden, we didn't just have visible telescopes anymore. We had radio telescopes, which are very similar. I mean, they both are just measuring different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. That's basically it. But the really amazing thing about what some of these radio telescopes can do, just to give you an idea of how sensitive they are, they measure...
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Chapter 3: How does the National Radio Quiet Zone protect radio telescopes?
Yeah. And then the FCC said, we're going to do one better. We're going to put another blanket layer, much larger layer, called the National Radio Quiet Zone, on top of the West Virginia Radio Astronomy Zone to kind of make this huge buffer, right, to make it even harder for radio signals to mess with the radio telescopes in the West Virginia Radio Astronomy Zone.
That's right. So that smaller NRQZ, the National Radio Quiet Zone, had from the jump had some looser restrictions than the even much smaller WVRAZ. It covered a much larger area, about 13,000 square miles. But think of it this way.
It's really a rectangle, the NRQZ, 13,000 square miles across Virginia and West Virginia, and a little bit of Maryland, the southernmost tip on that western panhandle. Just the tip. Just the tip. It's very mountainous. It's got parts of the Allegheny, parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains. but mainly the Appalachian Mountains.
And within that 13,000 square mile rectangle, you've got that West Virginia, the WVRAZ. In the center of that, you've got a two mile zone that surrounds Green Bank, West Virginia. And every time you go into a smaller circle within that rectangle, it gets more and more restrictive as for what kind of radio noise that you can have.
Because in the middle of that zone, you've got the Green Bank Observatory, and they have even more restrictions right there in the center.
Yeah, at the Green Bank Observatory, you can't even think about using any kind of radio-creating device because that would create radio waves.
If you think about Wi-Fi there, you're fired.
Yeah. Fire it if you're lucky.
Yeah, exactly.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do residents face living in the National Radio Quiet Zone?
Like Anna gives the example of if your car breaks down, you don't just call somebody on the cell phone and be like, I need a tow. Sure. You're walking unless somebody friendly drives by who you know. And trust.
Right.
And probably had dinner at their house and will give you a ride to somewhere. People use pay phones, as we'll see. You can definitely feel disconnected just from not having cell service, let alone from Wi-Fi. But that said, I think we'll talk a little more about it later.
But the people who work for Green Bank Observatory try to work with the community because although technically it's law that they can regulate this and punish people who violate these rules, they don't. They are trying to keep... a happy relationship with the community and figure out compromises that work for everybody. That's what they try to do.
I think if you talk to some of the people who live around there or elected officials around there, they might not necessarily agree with you. But that seems to be at least the mission of the Green Bank Observatory.
Yeah. And again, that's specifically the green bank, which is the most restrictive area where you're not going to have any cell service. And like I said, until very recently, no Wi-Fi at all there, like no Bluetooth devices, no RC cars and trucks for the kids and playful adults, no microwaves. But like you said, I think you hinted at it.
A lot of people or some people, because there's not a lot of people there, period. But some people move there for that reason. They want a simpler lifestyle. They want less technology. And we'll talk a little bit more about, you know, kind of some of the people that tracks because it can get very interesting. Other people can get annoyed.
most people there probably just, you know, that's where they've always lived. And so that's just the deal. It's a way of life. I think in 2016, there was an Italian graduate student named Gioffredo Collini, who traveled there to study, like, the people and were like, you know, what's it like for the people that live there?
And he found, and this is a very small-scale study, it wasn't, like, the most robust scientific thing, but I think just walking around and studying and talking to people, he found that people seem to have lower anxiety there. But it's different, you know? They use maps. They use payphones still.
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Chapter 5: What is the history behind the establishment of the National Radio Quiet Zone?
And I was like, what is that? And they were like, that's Seagal's place.
Yeah.
Are you sure they didn't mean George Segal?
Oh, well, it's George Segal, but sure. That would have been a twist.
Yeah, it would have. So did you see Steven Segal there? Oh, no, no, no, no.
No matter how high I jumped, I could not get a picture.
I remember I read there was a GQ profile, I believe, years and years and years ago about him. And the title of it was The Biggest Liar in Hollywood.
Oh, geez. Yeah, he's supposed to be not a good guy.
It was eviscerating. I would recommend going and reading it.
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Chapter 6: How does the National Radio Quiet Zone affect modern technology use?
They went to the Quiet Zone around Green Bank. They basically made a photo documentary of life in the area. Oh, cool. And they named their book Drake Equation, and they sent us a copy. So hats off to those guys for the book, for making the book and sending it to us.
I thought you were talking about someone else at first because I wish I could remember his name. I follow him on Instagram now. There's a listener that is in...
astro or astral photographer oh neat where basically he's I don't know where he goes to get these pictures it's obviously in another quiet zones of the world okay or at least dark places you know and gets and it's not just like he sets up a nice camera and does a long exposure like it's
Really sophisticated equipment and process that he goes through to get stuff that looks like it doesn't look real. It's like, you know, celestial bodies that like it looks like some AI generated art. It's incredible stuff.
I think if it was an astrophotographer, he'd be taking pictures of like auras. I got to see that. Make sure you figure out that guy's name.
I will. And I'll follow up on an episode. I'll see if I can find it. It's really, really impressive. Super cool. And very just a super cool, hyper specific art form, I think, you know.
Yeah, or people, if you can't wait, they can go to you, Chuck the Podcaster, on Instagram and look at who you follow and figure it out.
Yeah, sure. There you go. I follow Josh M. Clark. Do you? Of course I do.
I follow you, too. Yeah. Thanks.
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Chapter 7: What role does the Green Bank Observatory play in radio astronomy?
And the idea is that people are super sensitive, obviously, to electromagnetic waves and they feel like it gets them sick, headaches, nausea, dizziness, chest pain, hair loss. And I say feels like because it's never been proven that this is a real thing.
No, one of the things that really undermines the concept of electromagnetic hypersensitivity as an actual medical condition is that people who suffer from it can't reliably tell when they're in the presence of electromagnetic frequencies. Right. They've been given tests and tests and tests where they are being bombarded with an electromagnetic pulse.
And next, they say that they are and they're not actually being bombarded with it. And they can't say like, yes, now I'm being exposed to electromagnetic radiation. Now I'm not. So that alone makes it seem like it's simply a psychological disorder or a nocebo effect that people are being... Like, their symptoms are real. Like, they're losing their hair.
They're not pulling it out in secret and saying, I lost my hair because of this. Their symptoms are real. What's causing it seems to just be in their mind. I say that, though, with the kernel of salt. Grain of salt? Mm-hmm. Because there have been diseases before that were treated like this initially. Yeah.
And it turned out like, no, these people were just a group of mistreated sufferers who actually were suffering from something that's now recognized. So it's possible that's the case. And even if that's not the case, these people actually are suffering. Right. So the World Health Organization—
recognizes it as a medical condition, but a medical condition that warrants further study to figure out what the heck's going on and how to actually help people who suffer from this regardless of what the cause is.
Yeah, for sure. And either way, in either case, it's really great that Diane Shaw and whoever has met her and followed her there have a place to go where it is quiet for them, you know?
Yeah. And if you're like, this kind of sounds familiar, Lenny from Laverne and Shirley on Better Call Saul, he suffered from electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
Oh, I did not see that show. It's still on the long list. But I thought you were going to say Julianne Moore and the Todd Haynes film safe. But that was a little different. I think that was and I don't know the name for it. But the people that think it's like everything's dirty and everything is going to get them sick.
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