This is all very interesting stuff. I did a lot of online research before selecting my antenna.
I really was tempted to make my own. I watched a bunch of YouTube how to videos and there were some guys living in very rural areas getting very good reception with home made bow tie antennas mounted on 20’ poles.
Any they really are a Sunday afternoon project.
I've only just noticed this is an old thread, but no matter...
Here, the TV companies dropped the VHF service and all went UHF about a decade ago. It was half-and-half prior to that. SImultaneously the digital services started up.
I had an old MMDS dish kicking around, and since I'm only 30 miles from the nearest TV transmitter I realised I could use the dish as a UHF reflector, so mounted a 900-ish MHz folded dipole at the focal point of the dish and mounted it in the attic. The gain of the dish (about 27dB (claimed) compensated for the signal loss of receiving through the roof structure.
That does me for terrestrial TV, but I barely ever watch it anyway. I'm hooked up to several freebie European satellite streams, but barely watch anything on them either. The vast majority of my viewing is downloads I've missed when they've been on broadcast telly or old movies.
I don't think I've sat through a TV advert in years.