camper, go buy yourself an antenna with gain, if you are trying for one area, a directional antenna is the way to go
that little thing gave you an extra bar, but that is still an extremely poor antenna, you will be amazed how much a good directional antenna will help
and the ground idea is no good, antennas work by reflecting off the ground, by attaching directly to the ground you are sinking the whole signal into nothingness
get one of these:
amazon.com has a bunch like that, this one is called "Cantenna", I've used them and it works great, often you can get a signal half a mile away