Antenna Reception – What would you do?

I have complained repeatedly about my antenna reception, and I am at the point that I am ready to take some kind of action.  It is frustrating me beyond belief that I cannot get a consistent signal on the majority of the channels.  I have 3 HD-capable tuners.  Knowing that my father lives only 300 feet in front of me and has inferior equipment, but gets great reception only compounds my frustration and fuels my search for a solution even more.  Here are my choices:

1.) I troubleshoot all possible antenna problems.  Make sure all my connectors are nice and tight.  I have used the existing original connectors on all coaxial cable when I could, but have had to cut the ends off in a couple of places when running up through the floor and where running through the brick at the bottom of the house, then crimped new connectors back on.  I’m thinking of doing those over, maybe using compression connectors and a compression tool.  I’m thinking about taking the Radio Shack amplifier and pre-amp out and getting something different, either a Channel Master or Winegard.  My dad uses the same Radio Shack amp and pre-amp, but I’m going to try something different.  I have tried without the amp, but then couldn’t tune in at least one of the channels, so I’m guessing I need an amp in my set up.  I’m going to try different antenna placement.  Right now it’s mounted to a post that’s about middle-way around the rear of my house and extends a few feet above my roof (enough for it to be able to rotate without hitting anything).  I want to move it to the very end of my house, probably using a tri-pod on the roof and elevating the antenna more than it is now.  Unfortunately, that end of the house is the opposite end of my family room and will result in a longer cable run (and having to join the cable together from where it is now, no way am I going to run all new cable the length of the house).  I live near the woods, with all the trees surrounding the left side of my house.  I feel that the signal is getting blocked by the trees and the low elevation of the antenna.  Moving the antenna to the end of the house will give it a somewhat more open area.  My dad has to contend with those same trees, but I feel like because he’s much farther away the signal is making it over the trees and to him.  My antenna is pretty huge; it’s the biggest one that Radio Shack sells.  So I’m not sure how high I can really elevate it and it still be stable.  Another option I’m contemplating is getting a different antenna, but a lot of people say there’s not a lot of difference in antennas.  That’s pretty much a summation of Plan #1.

2.)  I have my dad’s computer networked to me, so that he has access to the internet and so my son can play multiplayer games from down there.  In the beginning, another goal was to give him access to all my DVDs, but after getting it all set up I found that the distance/speed limited getting it to work for that.  Also, at first I thought I was going to have to get outdoor antennas and run cabling and all that, but after I decided to just try an access point in his window, and it worked, I decided I didn’t need to do all that.  The problem is, with the current setup, he gets about a 30% signal to me and he has to connect to my network manually each day that he uses the computer.  It is fine as long as it is in use, but when the computer is shut down and not used for a while it loses the connection to my house.  I’ve never had it lose connection while actually using the computer, though.  Also, to accomplish this, since his computer is in his basement, I have to use powerline networking equipment to get his PC connected to his Linksys WGA54G that sits in his window.  That’s another limiting factor as it’s only 14mbps.  However, because of the distance his 54G speed is probably lower than the powerline equipment.  Any way, Idea #2 is to put something like the HD HomeRun at his house connected to his antenna and have the network supply me with the HD channels.  However, this would not be an easy feat as I would have to improve all of the networking equipment on his end and my end, upgrading to Wireless N and definitely going with external antennas.  I don’t know which would be more “iffy”, my TV antenna signals or the signal/speed of wireless networking.  I don’t know how I could run a long enough cable from his wireless device to an external antenna on top of his house (no way would he let me mount it on the side of his house).  I would think any high dB antenna would be useless if I had to run 100′ of cable to it.  Then the other thing is, I’m not sure how rewinding and fast forwarding timeshifted TV would work over a network like this.  But assuming I could achieve Wireless N speeds, it wouldn’t be much different than using an HD HomeRun over a 100mb connection, would it?

Which way would you go?  I’m desperate here.