Guys - I am truly grateful. I will research all the options each of you has provided regarding the longer range antenna. I will certainly have more questions before I buy anything.
For now, it is apparent that I will need a mast or tower, so I want to focus on that first, as my soon-to-be wife will need some convincin'! Here are the reports for different heights. How high do I need to go? Other than WWRS, there doesn't seem to be significant gain between 40 & 50 ft. Well - it's ~2dB of NM for the Madison stations & a little less for the Chicago ones. I should let you guys tell me whether or not that is significant. Plus, 50 ft. seems a little extreme...
If I'm interpreting the antenna info correctly, these larger antennas can acheive ~10dB gain on channels 7+, sometimes more? If that is the case, perhaps 30-35' is sufficient?
30 ft:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d5bc77fd7978dc
40 ft:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d5bc93cd7f5f88
50 ft:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d5bcdbc13677df
I have 3 options:
1) a ground-based tower - seems that Rohn is the standard there, but very expensive
2) tower on top of a detached (separte from house) garage - peak is ~15' off the ground - would be a long run back to the house (~50' underground conduit for network runs already in place + height of antenna). I think I would need an amp in the garage to boost the signal over the run to the house?
3) tower at peak of main house - peak is ~20-25' off the ground - not sure my wife-to-be is going to go for this, as it would certainly be "noticable" to put it mildly. However, this would result in the highest antenna height/shortest tower build out combo and shortest run to my distribution point.
P.S. This is all part of the longer-range plan. I am still planning to install one of the medium-range antennas in the attic for the local channels.
Thank you! This stuff is really cool!