The Silent Zone is a unique place where wireless networks and mobile phones are prohibited.

If you drive from Washington, DC, west towards the Allegheny Mountains, you will enter a vast area where there are no cellular signals and wireless networks are prohibited. This is the National Radio Quiet Zone - 34,000 sq. m. What is it for? This area has its own "attraction" - the world's largest full-circle parabolic radio telescope, whose antenna diameter is more than 100 meters. And radio signals and wireless networks are dangerous for the functioning of his unique equipment.

(Total 17 photos)

1. The telescope covers an area of 9300 square meters. m, and in height exceeds the Statue of Liberty. The silence zone, established in 1958, protects the telescope from interference.

2. The telescope is very sensitive. He studies radio waves emitted by comets, planets, pulsars, distant galaxies and the early universe. But when the signal has traveled such a long distance from afar, it can easily be drowned out.

3. “The telescope has a sensitivity equal to billions of billions of millions of watts… of the energy that a single snowflake gives off when it hits the ground,” says observatory manager Mike Holstein. “Any human interference will drown out this signal.”

4. Therefore, a Zone of Silence was established here, and the locals live here in a completely different way than other Americans. There are not only mobile phones, but also baby monitors, microwave ovens and even doorbells.

5. Mike Holstein

6. "Any electrical appliances can cause interference," says Chuck Nyday, who patrols Pocahontas County, home to 8,000 people. He is constantly looking for sources of radio interference. Anyone who uses "forbidden" technology is politely asked to get rid of it.

7. The lack of mobile coverage is the result of a different way of life and mentality in the area. Yes, residents use the Internet, but the difference is that when they leave the table, the Internet does not follow them.

8. In the Zone of Silence, cars with gasoline engines are even prohibited, since sparks from spark plugs also emit electromagnetic waves.

9. There is a microwave oven in the telescope control room, but it is located in a room specially created for such devices - the whole room is sealed with copper plates.

10. Here, conversations are not interrupted by calls, status updates and notifications. Here, parents do not sit in the stadium, buried in mobile phones - here they watch their children play football.

11. What will happen to this place in the future is still unclear. The telescope costs $14.5 million a year to maintain, and the National Science Foundation, which sponsors it, has already announced funding cuts by 2017. Therefore, in addition to looking for signals since the birth of the universe, scientists are also looking for sources of new funding.

12. One of the residents - Bobby - the owner of a hardware store.

13. Abby has been working in this workshop for more than half a century.

14. And although young people climb the wall here because they cannot buy a new smartphone, older people, on the contrary, tend to move here - to a place where there are no harmful radio waves and constant mobile calls.

15. Welcome!

16. GPS is allowed in the Silent Zone, because it uses satellite communications and does not interfere.

17. View from the telescope. The small telescope is maintained by the same team, and the mountains serve as a barrier to outside signals.