I found a 1949 ad for "free coaxial cable rental" included with purchase of a new Admiral TV in Wilkes-Barre, another of those populous communities deep in a valley between the only cities with TV stations pre-1952 (Philadelphia and Binghampton NY).
If you look at today's coverage of what was then a DuMont channel WFIL-TV
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...&q=call%3dwpvi
its 70 mile contour hits all the ridge peaks in the area where cable started, north of I-81.
WPVI-6 and WPHL-17 are the only Philly stations on thier originally-assigned frequencies.
Unfortunately, the NYC stations did not cover Eastern PA much beyond Allentown and Phila, though they seem close enough.
It was super to get the three independents 5, 9, 11 from NYC and all of Philadelphia's ON CABLE when I lived in Allentown in the early 80's.
We had a second set, an RCA CTC11 in the bedroom, getting all those channels on the VHF dial ;-)
Service Electric Cable is still in business and was one of the first in the area to switch to fiber-optic.