I'm in the same boat... looking for the right setup. I bought a 4-bay Electronic Master antenna and just mounted it on the side of my house, not trying to specifically point it anywhere and i picked up 14 channels (although there were a number of duplicates and SD channels) just going straight to my TV.

Need to know whether I should spend the money to buy an RCA ANT-800 multi-directional antenna instead... with a preamp.

Any suggestions?