this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
632 points (98.9% liked)
RetroGaming
25856 readers
9 users here now
Vintage gaming community.
Rules:
- Be kind.
- No spam, AI slop, or soliciting for money.
- No racism or other bigotry allowed.
- Obviously nothing illegal.
If you see these please report them.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Plenty of those exist. They were given out like mad when the analog to digital switch was happening. Little boxes that would convert digital TV signals to analog for viewing on old TV's.
Do you happen to remember any of the brands/types?
They were referred to as DTA's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_adapter
You'll still require a means of amplifying and broadcasting the converted signal if you need true OTA but this gets you an analog RF signal (NTSC in the US) from a DTV broadcast.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could take the output of the DTA and feed it to signal booster/amplifier with an antenna on the output and get short range OTA broadcast. Just know your laws on allowed output power.
Digital converter boxes output their signal over cable (coax or HDMI, etc) NOT air. - some old (small) tv devices were antenna only.
I mean, the old devices could be modified, but you don't always wanna do that.
That coax output you mention contains the OTA signal, but yes, you'd likely need to amplify it within the limits of your local laws to broadcast it any usable distance.