Philco head-scratcher--UHF stations without converter on VHF-only TV?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Growing up, 10 miles from where I live now, we had a good Winegard antenna on a pole but no rotor. It faced the city; trouble with that was it was facing the dead wrong direction for the local channels; they came in so poorly that you really couldn't watch them.

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?

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.