National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Greenbank, West Virginia

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The field of radio astronomy began in the 1930s when Karl Jansky began searching for noise at certain frequencies detected by short wave radio receivers. Bell Labs had been working on establishing transatlantic radio telephone service. Jansky, while working at Bell Labs, noticed a regular hissing or sizzling static that he couldn’t explain. In 1932 Jansky found that the source of that noise, cosmic radio waves, as he called them, to be coming from the center of our very own Milky Way Galaxy. This discovery was so newsworthy at the time that it was published on the front page of newspapers from coast to coast.

Grote Reber, grew up in Chicago, and after school worked for several radio manufacturers in the Chicago area. Reber was fascinated by Jansky’s discovery and he applied to Bell Labs and various observatories hoping to find work in this area so he could find out if there were more radio sources like Jansky had found. There were no jobs to be found due to the great depression so Reber decided to work on this question by himself. In 1937, Reber finished building the world’s first radio telescope in his back yard in Wheaton, Illinois.

Reber Telescope at NRAO
Reber Telescope at NRAO

It took Reber several tries to find a receiver that would capture the radio signals but he finally confirmed Jansky’s work in 1938.

By the mid 1950s proposals for a research facility were floating around and in late 1956 was created and the National Science Foundation began the purchase of several thousand acres of land around Greenbank, West Virginia. Greenbank is in what is known as the National Radio Quiet Zone, a large area of very restricted radio transmissions. Cell phones, microwave ovens, TV and radio transmitters are all sources of radio frequency interference or RFI and can affect the research being done.

Most of Reber’s early work was done at night because there was too much interference from car engines during daylight hours. Over the years NRAO gathered a fleet of diesel trucks, station wagons and even Checker cabs to avoid the interference.

Checker Cab Outside the Visitors Center
Checker Cab Outside the Visitors Center

Bob’s first visit to NRAO was in the late 1970s as a member of the Penn State Astronomy Club. The main attraction at that time was the 300ft transit, the world’s largest moveable telescope. More pictures if I can find them… Unfortunately, the telescope collapsed into a heap of steel on 15 Nov 1988. In 2000, the Green Bank Telescope began observing.

If you want to take pictures of the telescopes on the tour you have to have a film camera. No digital cameras and no cell phones allowed.