I am a professional TV antenna installer and trouble shooter.
Back when TV signals were analog, a passing aircraft could cause a reflection of the signal to your antenna. There would be two signal paths for a short time,one over the ground and one from the ground to the aircraft, and then reflected to your antenna.The motion of the plane caused the two signals to be alternately in and out of phase. The signals would be partly canceled and then partly re-enforced. This caused both the picture and sound to waver rapidly in and out. Digital signals have alleviated this problem substantially.
Indoor TV antennas (rabbit ears or one in attic) do NOT work well because the walls or roof of the building cut down the signal about 30 to 50 percent. On top of that, the different TV channel signals have different wavelengths. The higher the channel number, the shorter the wavelength. This means that for the best reception, an antenna MUST have different element lengths to match the different wavelengths.
Many of the digital channels have lowered their transmitting power because it was believed that a lower power digital signal would travel as far as id did when it was analog. They are now finding that this is not true.
If the stations are a good distance away, the antenna must also have gain (the ability to increase the signal strength before it is delivered to your set.) The longer the antenna, the better its performance. A 16 foot antenna works the best if you are 50 miles or more from the transmitting station. A booster (preamplifier) could also help.
If the stations are in different directions it must also be able to be turned since a good antenna is built to receive signals from one direction only while rejecting them from all others.
A rabbit ear (even if it is amplified) does not have a frontal gain, side and rear rejection, nor the right lengths and it probably would not be high enough, since an increase in height increases signal strength.
The cure to many of these problems is the installation of a large antenna together with a rotator (rotor) and a booster.
The least expensive way is a tripod on the roof as opposed to a self supporting tower.
A tower could cost $1,000.00 or more and requires a six foot deep hole, at least four inches of pea gravel and about a yard of concrete.
If you have an old analog TV, you will also need a digital converter. I have found that the newer digital sets will "remember" the channels when it scans with your antenna pointed in one direction, but when you turn the antenna to a different direction and re-scan, it will erase the first ones it had. This means that when you turn your antenna for different channels, you may have to re-scan each time. For this reason, I recommend a digital converter that will remember all the channels. The RCA DTA800B is one of these but it does not have the features of the Digital Stream DTX-9950
Do not be fooled into thinking that a universal remote control will work with these because they do not have all the capability of the original remotes.
Buy the best quality equipment you can afford from a reputable dealer and have it properly installed and it will give give you many years of care free service and you will be able to view the TV digital/HD signals available in your area for FREE!.
I hope this helps.
Bob