[chad]

The dipole will be int he shape of a "T" and will be somewhat directional, you just have a single wire. it's going to be omni.

Trees really are of no worry, however, Foil lined exterior insulation like Celotex, etc can cause issues as can mounting the antenna right on top of a metal stud.

Take a boombox or something and see if your reception degrades significantly inside /vs/ outside on the same station, try to grab one farther away outside and go to approximately the same area inside. Note changes.

Often times an outdoor antenna is all you can do and that sucks. Some go for amplified antennas but forget that they amplify EVERYTHING and the noise that is amplified de-sensitizes the front-end of the tuner. Unfortunately modern gear is simply not built with good tuners. in fact car tuners rock WAY harder (I use an alpine in my shop) The other option is to fins a vintage, recently aligned tuner for cheap, they have a more narrow capture and can help.

If you turn the muting off on the receiver are you getting strange noises between the stations? more than just static? you may have noise issues too.