Can a paperclip pick up TV stations?

I’ve also used a twist-tie for an antenna, too, in a temporary situation. As he said, a strong signal can be picked up, but a stub antenna will be subject to local variations in the signal path.
 
Now that we have a UHF station in Mankato (the other 2 stations are VHF) I was able to pick it up full 5 bars on my TV with one of those little antennas that went on the back of a Dish receiver for the RF antenna
(I'm 5 miles away but its a translator so only 15kw)