Is the new antenna pointed in the right direction? Try turning it
through all 360° to see how that improves/degrades the situation.
This presumes you have all the right connections of course.

yes, its pointed west as the guy at the station has suggested. i did
go up and rotate it through the compass points just to be sure there
wasn't a better direction for it.

As you are using two antennas, how are you connecting them to the same
TV or VCR? As you have tried this antenna individually and still
found no happy conclusion, it would seem to be an elemental problem.

in seattle, this antenna scheme is sold specifically to pull in a
station that is west of the city, when all the other local stations
are in town. so my main antenna points north toward downtown seattle,
and this smaller one, that i mounted as instructed (on the same pole)
points west. there is this small plastic box that is part of this
kit. it too is mounted to the pole. i guess it's a splitter. i plug
the little and big antennas into the box and a third cable runs down
to the house. the station is not terribly far away - it used to come
in fine, and they haven't degraded the signal. i live kind of on a
hill so i don't think a building or hill is interfering with my signal
path. when the coax connector is plugged into the tv, and all the
other stations come in, channel 13 is snowy. you can barely make out
what is going on.