That is the Ed Fong style I mentioned. I REALLY like the idea of this style, but unfortunately I don't have enough room in the attic for it (I have right at 3' to mess with). Was hoping maybe it could be hidden behind the porch beam. Another though was to paint the pvc the house color, and move it as high up on the side/corner of the house as possible. It should blend in and not really be too obvious.
That would be an option. For most of the frequencies you scanner covers, line of sight is how things tend to work. If your antenna can "see" the transmit antenna, it's probably going to work.
But all homes have some amount of metal in them. If it's metal siding, insulation with foil backed vapor barrier, HVAC ducting, metal plumbing, wiring, etc, there can certainly be issues.
One option is to look at the "Ventennas".
Untitled That'll slip over one of the plumbing vent pipes and no one will know the difference.
I will probably end up with a simple ground plane in the attic. One thing I didn't mention, and didn't even think of until I was in bed last night, is that I have solar panels on the roof. Will those cause any major issues?
That would work, and for most scanner users, a 19" tall antenna is sufficient. You could easily do this:
This antenna, 19" tall -
https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/larsen-nmo150-450-800-1050
This base adapter (provides the ground plane under the antenna) -
https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/pctel-maxrad-mbsuhf-1651
The solar panels are metal, and that's going to likely be an issue. Also, some of the inverters used to convert the DC power from the solar panels to AC power your house uses, can be noisy and may cause issues, but there's no way for us to know, you just need to give it a try.
Other option would be to mount the above antenna/base adapter to one of the solar panels. That'll blend in and no one will notice.