Ok this is just a brief update. I have a Silver Sensor now. This is just to get rid of the cobbled together "franken-tenna". Holy cow, what a difference already. Have not tried any Canadian stations, but I got a really good increase in signal strenth across the board. Channel 2's HD broadcast was the weakest from the beginning. On the franken-tenna it hovered around 50% and would drop out completely pretty often. Channel 4's HD broadcast was around 60% and would occasionally pixelate and/or stutter the audio.

All stations are now stable. Channel 2 HD is about 75%, Channel 4 HD is in the 80-85% range and the grand island stations and channel 7 are all at 95-100%. The silver sensor is sitting behind the TV, out of sight. If I set it up higher, the signal strength improves again... noticeably.... but my wife says it's ugly.

For now, and for $25, this works for me. I will explore the better antenna solutions after it warms up in the spring. I'm not likely to get up on the roof any time soon.

Thank you all for all the help and suggestions (and knowledge) and I will keep coming in here to try to stay abreast of what's happening around me.