[Dave Loudin]

That's great. It's great to see things work out to the good side of possibilities.

One tip for those who don't have a smart phone: Using the "start maps" option in TVFool provides a Google map centered on the receive location, with one of their red circle/pointer icons used to mark the exact location. With the satellite option, you can zoom in pretty tightly on your location. Select the "Show lines pointing to each transmitter" option to have those lines plotted and you now have landmarks to work with. In most cases, this will be good enough. In attic installs, this could be just a starting point if there are lots of signal reflections to deal with.

Also, local reception conditions can vary quite rapidly, so before recommending your setup to others, run a TVFool report for thier location. For instance, at one end of my street, it's easy to get line-of-sight to the DC market (might try an indoor antenna, even). However, on my end, one-third mile away, at 25 feet it is still one- and two-edge paths to those transmitters.

Almost forgot: when comparing with- to without-preamp reception, be sure to completely remove the preamp from the line. Unpowered preamps actually will be signal blockers 99% of the time. The only case I'm aware of where you can just switch off the preamp is the Terk HDTVa. You still need to keep the antenna unit plugged in, however.