So I'm curious as to why UHF and VHF require larger antennas. My parent's house was about 100 miles from the WTC and the antenna was massive. People in the city though used smaller sized ones.
That translates to a 10cm-1m wavelength for UHF and 1m-10m for VHF. Minimal effective antenna size for a basic wire antenna is 1/4 the wavelength, so you end up with big antennas for low frequency / large wavelength.
He special ordered a massive antenna at Radio Shack. This thing disassembled was the full length of an old full size Chevy station wagon, I’m guessing 12 feet in the box and a bit longer assembled. Dad and grandpa mounted the thing to a pole that was also quite high attached to a device that would rotate the antenna.
When it was time for a game, you had to rotate the antenna to hit a specific gap in the mountains, which varied for different channels. Good times.
most of the reason bigger TV antennas were a thing was the "bigger is better" illusion. They make fancy stacks of elements and pt "+28 Dbi" numbers on the box but at any specific frequency those could be outperformed by a simple single cut wire. (they weren't utter horseshit: considered across the whole band they could be better for being bigger, but thats a technical and theoretical "win")
There are places where "more metal harvests more signal" in antenna design, but they're little dots on a broad map, not where you'd expect them to be. Herringbone antennas at WiFi freqs are fun.