I have a decent antenna signal now and can receive the channels listed in blue below. I'm on the back side of a hill to the channels listed in red, so I generally can't receive those as well. I can also receive a CW 20, and a FOX 8 which are not listed on the antennaweb.org website for my location.

yellow - uhf WRAL-DT 5.1 CBS RALEIGH NC 126° 17.4 53
yellow - uhf WRAZ-DT 50.1 FOX RALEIGH NC 126° 17.4 49
yellow - uhf WRDC-DT 28.1 MNT DURHAM NC 126° 17.4 27
yellow - uhf WTVD-DT 11.1 ABC DURHAM NC 128° 17.3 52
yellow - uhf WLFL-DT 22.1 CW RALEIGH NC 126° 17.4 57
yellow - uhf WNCN-DT 17.1 NBC GOLDSBORO NC 126° 17.4 55
green - uhf WFMY-DT 2.1 CBS GREENSBORO NC 284° 58.5 51
lt green - uhf WMYV-DT 48.1 MNT GREENSBORO NC 284° 57.5 33
red - uhf WXLV-DT 45.1 ABC WINSTON-SALEM NC 284° 57.5 29
blue - uhf WUNC-DT 4.1 PBS CHAPEL HILL NC 292° 21.1 59
violet - uhf WLXI-DT 61.1 IND GREENSBORO NC 284° 57.5 43

I currently have the antenna connected directly to a STB, with no amplifier or preamp. I'd like to connect two additional TVs to the antenna, and I was considering purchasing the CM #3044 22dB 4-WAY AMPLIFIER to do this. Is there a better alternative?

Oh yeah, I have a standard UHF/VHF antenna like the one pictured below. I have removed the VHF portion and I'm only using the UHF section, since the entire antenna was too large to mount inside my attic. I'm fairly sure I could receive the channels in red if I ever decide to pay someone to mount the antenna on my roof.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/31JY66FRDYL._AA280_.jpg

Do you use a rotator? If the antenna is not pointing directly at the channels your trying to pick-up then your going to have problems. At under 18 miles, I doubt an amplifier is going to be the right solution if your not aimed properly. You might consider a second antenna pointed in the direction of the red channels. Use a CM joiner to combine. WRAL I believe is still giving away free antennas too. After this, if you have drops in signal strength, then get the amplifier.

I do use a rotator. I can actually pick up those channels in red during the winter months, when the trees do not have leaves on them.

I was primarily asking about the amplifier because I was thinking that I would need it to send the antenna signal to the other two TVs (three in total). When I try to split the signal with a simple splitter, I loose reception.

Thanks for the tip about WRAL giving away antenna's. I'll check into that. How do you combine two antenna's? I thought the CM joiner only worked for a specific channel?

They make joiners for a specific channel, but they also make them for all channels too with only like .5 loss instead of 3.5 loss with a splitter used in reverse. Just google channel master joiners...

Good luck. I'm not sure whether it would be better for you to get a pre-amp with like a 15 dbs gain or an amplified splitter like you were thinking. Maybe some others here have a better idea, but I'm leaning toward the pre-amp myself.

I had the same problem using a standard splitter. I tried both a pre-amp and an amplified splitter. In my case, I had better results using a pre-amp and standard splitter. The amplified splitter worked well but not as well as the pre-amp. Results my vary by application, I'm not sure but thought I'd share my results.

jk

use a winegard hdp269 preamp and standard splitter.

Higher gain preamps will overload because of the stations in yellow 17 miles away.