Stretched gels made of cross-linked poly(acrylonitrile) swollen in DMSO are introduced as freely scalable and widely applicable alignment media for the measurement of anisotropic NMR parameters such as residual dipolar couplings. The production process using accelerated electrons for cross-linking is described, NMR signals originating from the alignment medium are characterized, as well as methods for their suppression, and RDC measurements are demonstrated for a number of example molecules.