Tim and Co. had made one of these so I resolved to as well. I winged it based on my recollection of theirs but when I plugged it in I didn’t get any results. I redid it following the instructions from YouTube: Binder Clip HDTV Antenna.

Haven’t tested it yet but if it doesn’t work my guess is the sole prefab part (the matching transformer) is to blame. I don’t understand the workings well enough to know if this makes sense or not.

The previous design used an inch thick piece of wood instead of a cd case. This means the binder clips were opened wider. It was also narrower than the cd case so the two rows were closer together. Lastly, I had a strip of aluminum foil under each front edge (paralleling the paperclips but inside the clip) and now I have the small paperclip setup like in the video. No idea which of these differences would make a difference, hopefully all of them since the first attempt yielded zero results.

Update: It didn’t work at my parent’s house, which is 30+ miles from the stations, so I gave it to my sister for Christmas and it does work at her house in the city.
Conclusion: success