By Stephen Smoot, The Pendleton Times
FRANKLIN, W.Va. — After 11 counties in West Virginia and the Old Dominion passed official resolutions expressing serious concerns with National Radio Quiet Zone restrictions, officials say that many will still find their access hamstrung by “archaic” regulations.
The latest move comes in the form of an agreement between Starlink on one hand and the stewards of the NRQZ, which covers the operations of the Green Bank Radio Observatory and the National Security Agency facility near Sugar Grove.
Starlink launched service in 2019 with the goal of providing global mobile broadband through satellite connected service. Its website advertises “connectivity where you least expect it . . . in even the most remote locations.”
The agreement allows 99.5 percent of those in the NRQZ to access Starlink service, but the entire breadth of the official zone encompasses an area extending from Salem in Harrison County to near Capon Bridge in Hampshire County in the north and from an area near Lewisburg to Charlottesville, Virginia, in the south.
Areas still closed to service include parts of northern Pocahontas and southern Randolph counties, as well as much of Pendleton County in a hexagonal shape roughly between Propst Knob in the north almost to Ugly Mountain in the south and from Bother Knob on the Virginia State line in the east to Pine Tree Knob and Cedar Knob in the west.
Until recently, residents, business owners, and emergency management personnel had use of Starlink within the zone, “very successfully.” Emergency communications procedures assumed that it could be used for emergency communications whether during a disaster, or even between an ambulance and medical facility for patient care.
