How did that antenna wind up facing the wrong way for Salisbury television stations, and how difficult would it have been to swing the antenna around so that it was in fact pointing squarely at the locals? :scratch2:

No wonder folks in your area had big, high-power antennas on rotors years ago. I find it interesting, however, that Salisbury, Maryland never had an NBC-TV affiliate station of its own, as NBC was at one time (20-30 years ago or more) the top-rated TV network in this country. The other two networks (CBS and ABC) seem to be well represented, as well as PBS and today The CW and MyTV (the latter probably on subchannels of the digital arms of 16 or 47).

It's interesting that you mention channel 40 in Wildwood, New Jersey. Yes, that station is WMGM-TV; it is the only TV station receivable in that part of New Jersey without cable (this is, or was some time ago, mentioned on their website). Another city which has only one local station is Manchester, New Hampshire. Their only local station is WMUR-TV (ABC) channel nine, although I suppose it is possible, with a powerful antenna, to get stations on other networks from surrounding areas; today, of course, with cable and satellite, that area probably gets stations from Burlington, Vermont, Boston, Chicago [WGN], TBS and TNT from Atlanta and just about every other national "must-carry" cable network there is.

There are, no doubt, other cities in the U.S. which have only one local TV station or no local TV whatsoever; Wildwood, New Jersey and Manchester, New Hampshire are just two examples that come to my mind as I write this. Cable and satellite service have brought every major network, broadcast and cable, to just about every corner of this country in the last 20-30 years or more, so even if a given metro area has just one station or even no local television service at all, it now can get TV reception "just like downtown" from every network--almost with no exceptions. The only exceptions I can think of are cases in which people cannot afford even bare-bones basic cable (local channels only) or are unwilling (or unable) to install a large antenna. Such cases (having to have cable/satellite or a very unwieldy antenna on a rotor) are very common in Western states such as Wyoming and in many parts of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico or Arizona, which have many small towns and rural areas some distance from TV stations; the tiny town of Sinclair, Wyoming (population 500), for example (I looked it up on Google) is literally in the middle of nowhere, being hundreds (yes, hundreds) of miles from the nearest city. The cable and satellite industry must do a heck of a good business in that part of the country, as without it there is probably no TV reception at all (if there is, which I doubt, it's probably only one or two channels, the reception of which on an antenna may not be and probably isn't even close to city grade), and darned little, if anything (!) to listen to on AM or FM radio.

Jeff, the antenna was facing the wrong way on purpose, since all the "big-city" stations are in one direction with the few locals the other way.

I've also seen a lot of TV antennas on top of high towers on I-70 between Wheeling, WV and Columbus Ohio, usially in the Zanesville/Cambridge area of Ohio. I know here in the Pittsburgh area and the surrounding area, if you live in the upper panhandle of West Virginia or Eastern Ohio around Steubenville, you had to tune into WTAE-TV, Channel 4 for ABC. WTAE-TV is iffy over the air, even here in Pittsburgh so many people in those outlying areas are usually SOL on ABC unless they can pull in 33 out of Youngstown. However, with digital, the local NBC affiliate for Wheeling, WTRF, Channel 7 will piggyback ABC on it's 7.3 channel.

I have the same problem in the small town where I live. Channel 3 (NBC), WKYC-TV, here in northeastern Ohio 35 miles east of Cleveland, does not reach my area at all on an antenna; OTOH, the reception on the other stations (5, 8, 19, 25, 43, 61) is passable but nowhere near city-grade. (The only station I can get with an antenna well enough to watch is channel 19, the CBS affiliate for northeastern Ohio.) There is no other NBC affiliate anywhere near here (the closest one is channel 12 in Erie, Pennsylvania, 60+ miles east of me), so most folks in my small town have cable or satellite, both of which do carry every OTA TV station in the Cleveland area, including channel 3. The pictures are beautiful--"just like downtown" as the expression goes; better than anyone could possibly hope for from an antenna.

I don't know how this small village ever got along without cable, though the locals obviously managed as I see the remnants of large near-fringe-area antennas (what few of them are left--most have been taken down by now and scrapped) on roofs and chimneys of houses all over town. The local bowling alley down the street from me still has a high-power antenna on a rotor, mounted to the chimney, but I have a feeling they might retire that installation in favor of cable or satellite next year.

If I were living in Pittsburgh (or anywhere else) and were having trouble receiving any of the area's local TV stations, I wouldn't bother with a TV antenna; I would get cable or satellite and would not look back. There are areas of this country where TV antennas simply will not work (by virtue of sheer distance from the stations or terrain features; many small towns are literally hundreds of miles from the nearest city or are blocked by mountains from so-called "local" stations that may be only a few miles away), so satellite/cable is the only way people living in these areas can get any kind of TV reception. It would not surprise me if these people got along without television even as late as the '70s, listening instead to radio on what few stations they could receive, even if those stations were 100+ miles distant.

Cable or satellite systems almost always get local channels from the nearest major city, even though the "nearest" city may be 100 miles away or more. In these deep-fringe areas, I would not be surprised if the satellite provider has only satellite service with local channels (not satellite without locals [the area's local channels being received in the usual way, with an outdoor or rabbit-ear antenna] as is an option in metropolitan areas), as, again, in areas 100+ miles from the nearest stations, an outdoor antenna, even a high-power monster on a 50-foot tower with a rotor and a mast-mounted preamplifier, either will not work at all or the results will be so poor the effort will not have been worth the trouble.

WAVY is rebroadcast on channel 30. The ABC affiliate, WVEC is rebroadcast on channel 34, CBS (WTKR) on channel 39, and PBS (WHRO) on channel 25. All of this is from VARTV.com's listings.

Great thread!

Cheers,

Yeah, I remember when we first got color in 1971, Mom said we would get cable with the TV. Back then, cable carried your local channels along with some on the outlaying markets like Johnstown, PA, Wheeling, WV, and Steubenville and Youngstown, OH. Although TV is more homoginized now, back then, you might see a Youngstown station broadcast a movie at 4 PM or Steubenville broadcast cartoons or a local indy UHFer put on "The Monkees," "Lost in Space," etc. I remember when WKBN had "The Money Movie," all of us kids would gather around when it was "Planet of the Ape's Week" or secret agent films where we would watch "In like Flint" or "Matt Helm." Game shows like "Match Game 7x" are favorites too. Maybe, just maybe, with DTV, we might see some more variety again. Getting back to cable, it is a shame they don't have the adjacent market stations, if your local pre-empts what you want to see and you don't care to watch it, you can go to one of the others.

Come to think of it, over the air analogue TV, when I want to watch NBC, I watched channel 9 out of Steubenville instead of our local 11 because for some reason, 11 came in with a lot of ghosts and adjusting the rabbit ears didn't work while I got channel 9 a lot better. Channel 4 is tricky too, for some reason, their signal was weak and even in parts of the city proper, a lot of people have trouble getting it. So far with DTV, I can receive them much better though.

Just for the heck of it, I did some experimentation and there are places like in Montana and North Dakota where the strongest stations you can receive via antenna are from Canada so I'm sure those people there watched the CBC and indy Canadian stations.