There's a nearby ski area, Snowshoe, that has to work closely with the
NRAO to keep from interfering with the deep space transmissions.

_Wired_ had a good article last year about the problems NRAO faces.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/quiet_pr.html


Issue 12.02 - February 2004

The Quiet Zone
Cell phones, pagers, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth - the wireless revolution is
everywhere. Except here.

By John Geirland

.....
The subjects of radio astronomy are astronomically large, but the
signals they produce are astronomically weak by the time they reach
Earth. These emissions are measured in Janskys, named for the father of
radio astronomy, Karl Jansky. A Jansky is based on
0.00000000000000000000000001 watts - and that's a big signal at Green
Bank. Even a musical greeting card playing at the base of the telescope
could produce anomalous spikes in the data of an unlucky astronomer
trying to study stellar gases. If the interference is strong enough,
the telescope's ultrasensitive first amplifier - cooled by liquid
helium to minimize internal noise - shuts down.


There was an article in the _WSJ_ two months ago as well.

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/...ing15nov04.htm


Be Quiet. We're Listening.
Scientists in West Virginia are trying to hear what the universe has to
say.
But wireless devices are making it increasingly difficult.
MARCELO PRINCE / Wall Street Journal 15nov04

.....
The task of preserving the Quiet Zone largely falls to Mr. Reynolds and
a team of scientists at Green Bank. The radio frequency interference
team spends hours every week driving around in a vehicle equipped with
sensitive antennas and special gear to pinpoint local sources of
interference, like a broken knot in an electric fence. They must also
monitor thousands of cellphone towers and broadcast antennas in the
zone to ensure they don't disrupt the telescope -- an increasingly
time-consuming and difficult task.