I know this antenna works well:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B0017O3UHI
It's the
Antennas Direct - ClearStream 2 Long-Range HDTV Outdoor Antenna
I bought that one for my parents. Very clear reception, nice and strong.
I mounted it in the house, on the wall, behind the HDTV. Works fine. If you want to place it in the attic, it would work there, too. If you put it outside, it might work better. But I seriously doubt it -- bird crap would probably reduce the signal strength!
It's no larger than the 20x30 painting that used to be behind the TV.
Best Buy has it, too, but price is MUCH higher (and taxed):
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Antennas...nna&cp=1&lp=14
They're about 30-40 miles from the transmitters, along flat ground.
I'm also 30-50 miles from my transmitters, but the geography changes too much. I had a hard time getting 2-3 analog channels, and now I get nothing at all. On a good day, I can sometimes get 1 digital channel, with a lot of signal break-up. I either subscribe to cable or satellite, or have no local TV.
A lot of antennas sold in stores are garbage. Waste of $25-50 bucks. I've tried all of them: Magnavox, Philips, RCA, etc. Just a bunch of of crap that didn't work any better than a pair of rabbit ears I got free with a TV in 1990.
DTV, HDTV and the whole "digital transition" did more harm than good. Yeah, there's a few more pixels on the screen, so you can see zits on teenagers and age spots on older folks. But reception is worse, and you had to spend a bunch of time and money to discover it. Framerates and motion are unchanged, so no big strides in quality there. Worse yet, old TV looks worse on newer HD sets. Those old "good colorful sharp" VHS tapes are now "fuzzy off-color pretty crappy" VHS tapes, on the big fancy widescreen!
The only real comfort I've had is some better TV sets, like the Sony XSRD series, added quality filters, and you could buy a huge 50-60" set for under $2k. That was unheard of before HDTV came along. So it wasn't all bad. Just not all good, either.