90% of the population in the US already subscribes to satellite or cable, and the DTV transition is meaningless to them.
It is true that there is no such thing as an "HD" antenna. The brand-new "HD" antennas that some people have put up are identical to the ones sold 50 years ago.
The key feature of the TV antenna itself is whether it's tuned to receive VHF (2-13) or UHF (13-6x) channels. Everything else is a matter of height, direction, and cabling. Sites like
AntennaWeb or
TVFool (great site) can help you understand what you need to do as far as which channels you have a chance of getting and what you'll need to do to receive them. The further away you are, the higher and/or better antenna array you'll need to pick up the signals. If those two local channels are VHF, you need to make sure you're using an antenna that's designed to receive VHF signals. That may be why you lost the two channels when you made your own.
I have an AntennasDirect DB4 + ChannelMaster 7777 preamp/amp. Cost me about $100. The DB4 sits in a second-story window using old RG-59 cable (not as good as the recommended RG-6) to bring the signal to my den, a distance of about 75'. I'm able to pick up digital stations from up to about 60 miles away with perfect crystal-clear HDTV sound & picture while the same station's analog broadcast (from the same tower) is moderately snowy. Watchable, but snowy. Of course, that all depends on the station and how they're set up to broadcast. But it's not universally true that a DTV signal is weaker than an old analog one. Not at all.
Unless you live in a concrete bunker, there's really no reason why anyone shouldn't be able to pull in stations from 20-25 miles away with a reasonable little antenna, sitting on top of (or next to, or behind) their TV. I briefly owned
this one, and it pulled in 25-mile away DTV stations beautifully.
If your local cable company's signal is crummy, that has nothing to do with the DTV transition. My local cable company is also terrible in terms of price and picture quality. I've been a very happy Dish Network customer for over 4 years now.
