[mythtv-users] OT: Indoor VHF gain antenna

[David Brodbeck]

Anyone have ideas for an indoor VHF gain antenna?

I have one station on VHF I want to receive, on RF channel 9.  It's fairly
weak at my location because I'm getting it via diffraction over two hills,
and I live in a first floor apartment.  I've had some success with a
hand-cut half-wave wire dipole up near the ceiling, with a 4:1 balun to
match it to 75-ohm coax, but the signal is right on the edge of usable. 
Some weeks it comes in, some it doesn't.  Clearly I need a bit more
antenna gain than the 2.1 dBi the dipole (theoretically) has.

The antenna will go into a back room, so it doesn't have to be beautiful,
but it can't be completely unwieldy, either.

I've experimented with adding a second length of wire on the ceiling,
behind the dipole, to act as a Yagi reflector, but didn't see any
difference in signal strength.

Am I correct in thinking that a preamp is unlikely to help in this
situation?  My understanding is that preamps are mainly useful for
compensating for cable losses, and in this case the feedline is only six
feet long.