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I want to pick up atmospheric noise at 7 MHz and multiply that up to 400 some odd MHz. The reason to do this is I have a USB receiver for digital television that I would like to open in windows and grab some random numbers using the noise.

What sort of tools and supplies do I need to achieve this task?

Brady
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    If you just want random numbers, why not use the random numbers from 400 MHz? They are just as random as the 7 MHz numbers. – Phil Frost Dec 23 '13 at 11:31
  • That is, perhaps, what I really wanted to know. Wikipedia noted atmospheric noise in 7 MHz but I wasn't sure. I did have my suspicions when remembering changing the channels on my old, OLD uhf television. – Brady Dec 24 '13 at 07:05
  • A diode noise source should work as well. If you have a computer, access the CPU's dynamic RAM refresh register. You will need to look up your CPU online to learn the register access code. – Optionparty Jan 19 '14 at 01:00

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If you just want a source of true random numbers, you might as well use the RF noise at 400 MHz, which is just as random as the noise at 7 MHz. It's true that most of the atmospheric noise power is in lower frequencies, but you don't need a lot of power, you just need a lot of entropy, and entropy is everywhere.

For that matter, if you need true random numbers, there are plenty of ways to do that, which might be simpler than a radio, and perhaps also less vulnerable to attack, given that anyone with a radio transmitter can compromise your RNG.

Phil Frost
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