I live in an apartment in Wylie, over 40 miles from the Cedar Hill trasmission towers. It is covered in stucco with wire mesh. I am on the north side, on the second floor of a 4 story bulding so I have a lot of wire mesh and building between my antenna and the towers. I tried the leaf and no channel 8 so no Americas Got Talent. I laid the leaf antenna on the balcony and picked up channel 8. I went back to Frys and got a small RCA outdoor anetenna and a Channel Master Omni Directional Smartenna. Both worked on the patio but the Smartenna got a better picture and more stations. I kept the Smartenna. It is almost invisible on the balcony. I get minor distortion in about 5% of the recordings but nothing that stops me from watcing the show. The distortion is usually minor in the center of the screen. Channels Fox, NBC, ABC (8), CBS, 21 and ION and their sub channels are as good are as from Spectrum cable. The INDs are transmitted in lower resolution from the tower. I never see distortion in the live tv. I will try a preamp for the ditortion but I am enjoying what I have. I think the key is the antenna. Frys was good about letting me try things and returning what did not work. When I got the right antenna, everything else fell into place. Being in an apartment limited the antenna that I could use.
Forgot - tablo hardwired to the router.
40 feet of coax from antenna to Tablo, including 5" flat entry coax splice.
4 tuner Tablo
Net gear router
WD Passport HD (wish I had done more reading but works fine so far)
2 - Roku 2s - Roku 3 (HDMI to TVs)
Ipad & $50 Amazon 7 Tablet
All work well