Cellular and Wi-Fi networks have spread throughout the country to support our growing reliance on smartphones and other portable Internet-connected devices. But in Green Bank, West Virginia, radio transmissions are heavily restricted to protect the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, “the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope.” The telescope picks up radio waves from space that are weak and thus difficult to detect.

The Federal Communications Commission established the National Radio Quiet Zone in 1958 to protect the observatory’s sensitive radio telescopes from interference, and state law restricts transmissions within a radius of 10 miles of any radio astronomy facility. (The Quiet Zone also protects “radio receiving facilities for the United States Navy in Sugar Grove, WV.”)

The restrictions are annoying to some residents who would like a greater ability to use wireless devices. But for nearly a decade, those limits have ensured that Green Bank has been attracting “electrosensitive” residents, who have ailments they believe are caused by electromagnetic fields. The January issue of Washingtonian magazine has a detailed update on these new residents and on how the radio restrictions affect those who have no objections to wireless technology. The story, titled “The town without Wi-Fi,” also notes that the telescope facility could be shut down due to lack of funding by 2017, potentially leading to the elimination of the wireless restrictions.

For now, wireless limits create a lot of challenges. “In 2007, a government mandate for tire-pressure sensors in all new cars went into effect,” Washingtonian reported. “Well, those give off a radio signal that interferes with our telescope,' the article quotes telescope business manager Mike Holstine as saying. "The technology around us changes all the time, and even the smallest thing has repercussions.”

Kids with smartphones are apparently finding ways around the restrictions, Washingtonian writes:

Already, there are Green Bankers who are hungry for shiny new toys and aren’t above flouting the rules. At Green Bank Elementary-Middle School, right next door to the telescope, you’d expect to find teenagers bemoaning the unavailability of the cool gadgets they see on TV. But that’s not the case. According to one seventh-grader, plenty of kids in Green Bank have smartphones, and although they can’t get a signal, they’ve found a work-around. By connecting to a home wi-fi network (that the telescope interference protectors apparently haven’t picked up on), kids don’t need a cell network to talk to their friends—they can just use the new texting functions in apps like Facebook and Snapchat. Teenagers and technology, it seems, will always find a way.

Despite scant evidence, fear of wireless drives people to Green Bank

"Over the last few years, electrosensitives have flocked to the tech-free idyll in West Virginia, taking shelter beside cows and farms and fellow sufferers," the Washingtonian reported. They do so despite research suggesting that their ailments aren’t caused by wireless signals.

A number of studies have looked at the existence of electrosensitivty. A survey of their results found that people who claim to have this disorder can't recognize the presence of electromagnetic fields, and studies that showed health effects were either flawed or could not be reproduced. The World Health Organization says that "well controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure." According to an April 2013 article in Slate, a few dozen people moved to Green Bank because of the wireless restrictions, but it still had a population of just 147 residents.

Diane Schou was one of the first “electrosensitives” to move to Green Bank in 2007. The Washingtonian reports:

For many, the journey there was long and frustrating. Schou, for instance, had identified the cell-phone tower near her home in Iowa as the culprit of her woes back in 2003, but when she complained to company and government officials, she couldn’t get any traction. She spent months living in a Faraday cage, a wood-framed box with metal meshing that blocked out cell signals (more typically used by scientists conducting experiments in labs). She even briefly considered buying a repurposed space suit so she could get out of the house without pain. “I was told it would be $24,000,” she says. “I don’t have that kind of money. And what if it gets a hole in it?”

People like Schou attribute headaches, nausea, insomnia, chest pains, disorientation, digestive problems, and more to so-called electromagnetic hypersensitivity, though mainstream medicine does not accept this view.

“I feel for these people because they do have health problems,” Georgetown professor and molecular radiation biologist Timothy Jorgensen told Washingtonian. “What the cause is, I have no idea, but it’s not Wi-Fi.”

The Green Bank telescope facility has survived one proposal to cancel its National Science Foundation funding. Even if the government stops supporting the observatory, it could find other sources of revenue to fund its $10 million annual operating costs. The observatory's capabilities are distinctive and would not be easily replicated anywhere else. But some residents wouldn’t mind if the telescope and the wireless restrictions it requires go away.

If you want more details on life in Green Bank, the Washingtonian story is a great place to start. Quotes from residents illustrate some tension between longtime residents and their new, electrosensitive neighbors. Some are worried that the restrictions will ultimately hold residents back from participating in the modern world: