Don't get amplified. When unpowered, amplifiers act like attenuators and kill the signal. When amplified, they also raise up the noise level too. Being that you are only 5 miles from the tower, you are probably getting a great signal to begin with. Amps have a thing called headroom, which is the max amount of signal they can output. So, if you have a strong signal going in, it won't get kicked up or only get kicked up a little. Meanwhile, the background noise is getting amplified to more closely match the higher output of the desired signal. This means your signal to noise ratio is getting torn up.
My recommendation is to get a simple dipole antenna and keep the dipoles short and horizontally positioned, pointing out perpendicular to the direction of the tower. If you have to get a 300-ohm transformer, get a good one that will solidly seat onto your f-barrel on the back of the receiver.
