What Does Over-The-Air Television (OTA) Mean?
Over-the-air television (OTA) is a category of television broadcasting which makes use of television signals transferred by radio waves from television stations. Over-the-air television receives the radio waves with the help of a TV receiver which has an antenna. Over-the-air television was the only way to receive television signals until the 1950s. With the advent of cable and satellite television, the viewing of over-the-air television broadcasting has significantly declined.
Techopedia Explains Over-The-Air Television (OTA)
Over-the-air television is the first technology used for television broadcasting, with the first broadcast occurring in Washington D.C. in 1927. In order to view the over-the-air television broadcasts, an antenna is required. In the early days of broadcasting, consumers often needed to adjust the antenna for each channel in order to get good reception. However, the quality of reception greatly varied and some broadcasts suffered from fuzzy pictures.
