Thank You everyone for your assistance. Rabbit73, thanks for explaining everything like that. I finally feel like I have a grasp as to what is going on. I'm trying to understand some of the charts that were linked but am finding myself in a state of confusion with all the numbers as it is way above my level of expertise.
I guess my next two steps are to try the amp in the basement w/ the passive splitter and if that dosent work, try the CM-3418 DISTRIBUTION AMPLIFIER - 8 PORT with no preamp.
I have the antenna run w/ no preamp right now and am getting decent signal, but still running into issues with those weaker signals that I really want to get. Besides that, my local news station (WKTV) which is not in the direction of my antenna but 11mi or so away at 120 deg, is not coming in at all.
I know bigger, bigger antenna. That will be my last resort. I bought this antenna because it was discrete, clearly I should have sought all of your insight prior to going through all the work of mounting it.
Thank you all and, I'f you'd like I'll continue to update you on my status as I try different options.
One other question, and I'm sure this is a completely dumb amateur question, but what if I turned my antenna around to face the Albany towers, with the preamp? Like 135 degreeish? Would that lower the signal enough to use the preamp and possibly receive towers from Albany and Syracuse? Like I said, amateur question but I was just curious. Please try not to start your response to this with, "Yes that was a completely dumb amateur question."
Thanks Again.