There's an interesting twist. We're finding that these amplified gizmo's
are creating problems. Too much signal for the amplifier, actually
degrading performance. And they amplify the local noise, which is much of
the real issue, Taiwan wall-wart supplies, etc...

We are getting a little "thread drift" here but ...

When the shift to HDTV came we suddenly found that we couldn't get reliable
service for most of the channels we were used to. We live in a semi-rural
place and it's over 50 miles (as the crow flies) to the nearest broadcast TV
antenna.

A neighbor suggested the antenna mounted amplifier (I already had a
"distribution amplifier" in the basement) and it fixed us up.