There's a site out there somewhere where a guy calculated the effectiveness of various antenna models. I can't find the link now, but my comments on the quality of antennas are based on my memory of that site.
I bought the
Winegard PR4400. It's a bit big for inside use but not out of the question. I was in an apartment, so I mounted this on a pole and strapped the pole to my deck railing. This antenna was the best price/performance ratio I found. It's only $20. It's "UHF Only" but does get okay reception of the high VHF channels, too. A somewhat better performing antenna of the same configuration is the
DB4, but it costs 3x as much and is only a few percent better.
The DB2 is bigger and significantly better performing than the RadioShack antenna I listed earlier but half the size of the 4-bay antennas (the DB4 and PR4400). Many forum posters I read used this indoors, but at $40 it's twice as much as the PR4000.
8-bay antennas like
the DB8 and
the CM4228 are twice as wide as the 4-bays but are top of the line in receiving UHF signals. If you have a place outside to mount this and a mast-mounted amp I expect you can get your HDTV signals just fine with one of these. (Assuming your HD channels are UHF.)
If I recall correctly the Antennas Direct DB-series outperformed others in the same configuration, but probably not enough to justify their price margin.
Unless your antenna is right by your receiver, get an amplifier and mount it by the antenna. There are two-piece amplifiers where the power unit is in the house and plugs into the wall and the antenna cable. The amplifier mounts on the antenna mast and gets its power from the power unit over the antenna wire. Some of them have FM trap switches where you can filter out the FM signals which may help TV reception if the TV signals are relatively weak. (FM band is smack in the middle of VHF.) I bought my mom a CM amp for about $75, but I don't recall which one offhand. It works great and supposedly has the lowest distortion of the retail amps. Actually I think they call these pre-amps (as opposed to distribution amplifiers for splitting signals).
Remember, an amplifier improves the cable, not the antenna. An amplifier won't make an inadequate antenna adequate, but it will make a long cable usable.
A final note on bunny ears: The two collapsing rods are for VHF reception. Usually laying them flat or in a wide V is the best bet. The hoops are for UHF reception. In both cases the wires are perpendicular to the line to the TV station's antenna. (The antenna wires don't point to the TV station's antenna.) In many cities there is an antenna farm where all the stations have their towers; if so you're lucky and just point your antenna towards the farm.
By the way, now in DFW I'm using the RadioShack UHF antenna inside. I'm watching the NFC championship game with it right now. I just had the first reception problem in 7 months, but it was due to my having moved the shelves earlier, so just repointing the antenna fixed everything. I'm about 11 miles from the farm with no major obstacles between us, so reception is much easier here than I had in my Indy apartment.