I live in Marion, cut the cord 5 years, upgraded from an indoor (indoor worked awful) antenna to an outdoor one about 3 years ago, and don't regret for one second any of those decisions. With that said, providing your location, the position of CR signals and your obstacles you are competing with, I'd highly recommend going with an outdoor antenna as opposed to any type of indoor or attic one. I'm just afraid you might still struggle with the atiic and indoor ones. I've got the following antenna myself, it is cheap and it works great:
http://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Aspen-E...id=1408389227&sr=1-5&keywords=outdoor+antenna
With any of these similar like antennas, you'll also need a J-pole mount as well as the antennas don't usually come with a mount. Those are really the only two components you should need too along with the coax cable and such.
http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-C2-C...=1408389112&sr=1-113&keywords=outdoor+antenna
While I'd say my antenna works great, from time to time, mine does struggle a bit with ABC, but it is fairly minimal and easily tweakable (I'm talking like a couple times a year). Also, I'm sure many of the others work just as well if not better than mine. In fact, I've heard the ClearStream ones are arguably the best, but they are also a bit more spendy.
http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-Dire...2&sr=1-4&keywords=clearstream+outdoor+antenna
All said and done, back in the day, I think I spent about $150 for everything. $50 for the combo of the mount and antenna, and then I paid a guy $100 to install everything, including running the cable and setting up a splitter in my basement. Whether $100 for installation is cheap or expensive, I'm not really sure. All I know is that he was nice and did a very good job. Also, $150 in total cost is about the same as 3 months in cable bills for many, so it has easily paid for itself over the years and continues to do so.
Lastly, you are right about the direction of where the channels are broadcasted. I've got a south-facing house, I've got my antenna just over peak on the Northwest backside of the house, and it works best to point the antenna West - SouthWest. Truthfully, it is almost exactly West. Hopefully some of this helps you. All said and done, you are making a wise choice.