Give an Old TV a Rerun

The government is about to turn your oldest television into a useless relic. Instead of heaving the TV into a landfill, here’s how to give it a second life

By Dave Prochnow Posted 05.19.2008 at 3:11 pm 1 Comment

Reruns Give an old TV a second life. Note: Image on TV is simulated Luis Bruno; 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection

By now, you’ve probably heard the news: Next February, television will be broadcast only in digital. If you have cable, you’re already covered. If you have an old analog set—anything that pulls in signals over rabbit ears—you can buy a converter box to receive digital signals. But what about that really old TV with the fuzzy screen that takes forever to warm up? Most sets like that can’t receive cable or satellite service and don’t even have any A/V inputs, so a converter may not be an option.

Before you call Antiques Roadshow, however, you should know that with a transmitter kit, a cable and some solder, you can turn it into a monitor for an iPod video, a security-camera feed or an external display for a PC. Not too shabby for a piece of equipment that used to only be good for watching The Jeffersons.

How It Works
Cost:

Parts

A/V transmitter kit (apogeekits.com)
Twin-lead cable (radioshack.com)
12-volt power supply (designnotes.com)
A/V RCA cables (apogeekits.com)

1. Assemble the transmitter kit. Cut a length of the antenna cable and strip both ends of it. Solder one end to the antenna connector’s pins on the underside of the kit’s circuit board. Route the cable out the large hole in the kit’s lid, and connect it to the TV’s antenna screw terminals.

2. Attach the A/V RCA cables to your source device, and connect the other ends to the video- and audio-signal inputs on the side of the transmitter kit. For an iPod, plug the video jack and one of the audio jacks from an Apple composite cable into the kit’s inputs.

3. Turn on your video/audio source, and tune your TV to UHF channel 21.

4. If necessary, tweak the picture and sound quality by adjusting the screws in the holes in the top of the kit’s case.

Breathe more life into that ancient TV set by programming a serial video card to display the time, temperature or even Pong. Hit the next page for instructions.