The proposed lawn-embedded RF barriers could interfere with radio telescopes. Wired’s Davey Alba says the fight over
6240-6740 MHz is heading for the rough.
Astronomers say that’s not good enough. The frequency band proposed for the lawnbot (6240-6740 MHz) is the very same one several enormous radio telescopes operate on. Astronomers want the FCC to protect their share of the radio spectrum so their telescopes continue observing methanol, which abounds in regions where celestial bodies are forming.
“The Observatory’s telescopes … do a kind of celestial cartography that measures distances to star-forming regions with high precision, charting the course of galactic evolution,” representatives of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory wrote in public comments to the FCC objecting to iRobot’s application to the agency.