the search for chance in nature is one aspect of our residency in kilpisjaervi. the event of chance is pretty much needed by the means of todays cryptographic methods. strong cryptography relies on good random sources used to created the cryptokey, which will be the essential part, whatever crypto-method someone will use.
anyhow, the idea was to examine the known technics of nuclear decay and compare the signal with natural vlf signals, both are considered as random sources, that can not be predicted. nowadays the math is able to calculate a tendency in radioactive decay, it is still unpredictable but as tendencies occur, we rather go into that direction of mixing up several signal sources, chains of nuclear decay in a mix with wlan noise and so on.
we went up saana hill to find some good spots for the vlf recording first
this place on saanas shoulder was a very good spot for natural radio as the space was in the shadow of all the communication antennas around this area. the reception was very good. we had to go there seveal times because the very cold temperatures taught us: never use plastic cable tie in the very cold because they simply break, afterwards we used rubber bands instead, and digital equipment may fail completely. a good idea is as well, to use proper cables, we went to use coax and or xlr, where the mounting work can also be done with hand gloves on and the connection remains stable even you or the wind shakes to unit heavily.
we also built a small antenna outside the station, but for natural radio reception, the place was very bad. to much em emissions all around it.
later on we met derek from the kaira station. he will support us with vlf data from kaira.