Areas with little or no OTA TV stations

[Pat Cook]

Sterling, CO has a station licensed to it.  That station being none other than former RTV-turned indie KCDO 3 which can be received in Denver only via cable & satellite

Cheers

[Ultimajock]

...the former KZAZ-TV/11 was originally licensed to Nogales, Arizona, when it signed on the air in 1967. The station, now KMSB/v11 Tucson, cannot be seen OTA in Nogales since the changeover to digital signals; in fact, no English-language stations can be seen OTA in Nogales, Arizona, at all, only the seven Spanish-language (analog) stations licensed to Nogales, Sonora...

[M.J.]

There's some place in New Hampshire that I have heard does not receive any U.S.-based stations, and can only get French stations from Quebec. This area may have received WMTW/8 from Poland Spring, ME before the transmitter was moved to its current station and converted to digital where it does not reach as large an area as previously in analog.

[Dave]

I know parts of White, Benton, & southern Jasper & Newton Counties of Indiana get few TV stations.  I know all of Newton & Jasper counties & northern Benton & White Counties can get WYIN from their Cedar Lake transmitter, & WLFI Lafayette from their Rossville transmitter.  select TV stations from the towers north of Indianapolis reach Lafayette as long as you have an outdoor antenna, & preferably on a tower.  Those stations however are difficult to receive in Benton & White Counties.  In those counties, most people either have cable or satellite.  Most people in and around Lafayette Indiana also rely heavily on cable, as Comcast has permission to carry all Indianapolis area stations, as well as WTTW from Chicago (including WTTW's 3 subchannels). 

[Tom Wells]

I know parts of White, Benton, & southern Jasper & Newton Counties of Indiana get few TV stations.  I know all of Newton & Jasper counties & northern Benton & White Counties can get WYIN from their Cedar Lake transmitter, & WLFI Lafayette from their Rossville transmitter.  select TV stations from the towers north of Indianapolis reach Lafayette as long as you have an outdoor antenna, & preferably on a tower.  Those stations however are difficult to receive in Benton & White Counties.  In those counties, most people either have cable or satellite.  Most people in and around Lafayette Indiana also rely heavily on cable, as Comcast has permission to carry all Indianapolis area stations, as well as WTTW from Chicago (including WTTW's 3 subchannels). 

That may be true today, but back in analog days, anyone who wanted TV had to put up a fairly tall antenna.
I remember visiting cousins in Rensalaer and Remington back in the early 70's and they had pretty good reception of
Chicago VHF stations.  All of them had antennas on towers and rotors and lived on farms.

The pictures were right on the dividing line between just a bit wavy and not-quite-snowy.
The was often a ghosting "black cross" from other, even farther away stations fading into the picture.

[Mark]

Sometimes reception can be funny. I lived in Elk Grove Village, IL on the second floor with an outdoor antenna on the roof and I could pull in Channels 13 and 8 from Grand Rapids Michigan with ease. I have no idea why those stations came in 99% of the time. And very clear to boot. I couldn't DX any other stations, but for some reason at that particular spot, 8 and 13 came in clear as a any Chicago station.

Same when I lived in Southern Maryland, channel 17 (Philadelphia) and Channel 12 (Richmond) came in clear as did all the Washington DC and Baltimore. But for outside TV stations only 17 and 12 came in consistently clear with the attached antenna on the portable TV.

So I think some areas may get TV and others not. As for digital, I live in Chicago and get zero TV station, but I'm sure if you move around the city others with the same antenna (I only have a portable Silver sensor) would get everything.

[FreddyE1977]

My father has a cabin located in a mountainous rural area of Pennsylvania.
Prior to the digital switch he received 3 OTA stations, only one of them well.
Now he can only receive that one.

Garrett County, Maryland (far westernmost county of Maryland wedged in between PA and WV)
can get maybe 2 channels from the Fairmont-Clarksburg, WV area.

Many areas in northern half of Michigan you are lucky to get 2 to 3 OTA channels.

[justpassingthough]

I believe the Eastern Sierras in California/Nevada- namely cities like Bishop and Mammoth Lakes receive no OTA.  They're too far from Sacramento or Fresno, and limited by topography from getting the Reno stations.

[tripinva]

Bishop has KBBC plus two Reno translators.

- Trip

[Ultimajock]

Sometimes reception can be funny. I lived in Elk Grove Village, IL on the second floor with an outdoor antenna on the roof and I could pull in Channels 13 and 8 from Grand Rapids Michigan with ease. I have no idea why those stations came in 99% of the time. And very clear to boot. I couldn't DX any other stations, but for some reason at that particular spot, 8 and 13 came in clear as a any Chicago station.

...I was able to get WOOD/8 and WZZM/13 Grand Rapids, WKZO-TV/3 Kalamazoo, and South Bend WNDU-TV/16, WSBT/22 and WSJV/28 when I lived in Kenosha WI as a kid in the '60s. (That in addition to all the Chicago and Milwaukee stations.) Oddly enough, when I moved back in the mid-'80s, I could only get the South Bend stations occasionally and none of the Michigan signals...