Dog heating pad threatens pulsar research

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28448705/

By Tom Breen
Associated Press updated 12:21 p.m. ET, Wed., Dec. 31, 2008

GREEN BANK, W.Va. - Of all the threats to scientific research Wesley Sizemore has stymied over the years, satellites and cell phone towers don't stick in his memory quite like the possessive old hound and its treasured heating pad.

Sizemore is an interference hunter, vigilantly pursuing stray electromagnetic signals that bedevil researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which sits on 13,000 square miles tucked away in the nation's only radio-free quiet zone.

Radio observatories need interference-free zones like optical observatories need clear night skies.
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Researchers, mostly looking at pulsar waves that have traveled through space for billions of years, pursue signals so weak they can be easily foiled by anything from power locks on cars to a broken wire inside a heating pad that kept a nearby dog warm in the winter.

"There was enough arcing inside the heating pad that it caught our attention," Sizemore said, again telling what he affectionately calls "that damn dog story."

Over several days, Sizemore — who has a specially equipped truck and gear that can pinpoint an interference source the size of a 50-cent piece — tracked it to a doghouse about 10 miles from the observatory.

He bought a new heating pad and all was resolved, although not necessarily amicably.

"It was a nasty little dog," Sizemore said. "He wasn't real happy with me snooping around his doghouse, put it that way."