rickdo, I'm in Winston, between 23-29 miles form the local stations' towers and can get most stations with a simple Radio Shack rabbit ears setup like Dave Loudin mentioned. If memory serves, it was $13 or so. That may be an inexpensive test. Or, get something at Wal*Mart that can be returned. I would think that anything even halfway decent would be fine for the Triangle.
One other option - there's a new Raleigh company making an antenna. I've been thinking about getting one. It has a money back guarantee and the Amazon reviews (they sell directly and via Amazon) are really good. See
here
Hope that helps some.