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I finished my antenna setup and thought I would report on my results.
I ordered the Antennas Direct 91XG and CM-7777 pre-amp. After assembling the antenna, I did an initial test by connecting it directly to my TV and staking it in our front yard about 10 feet high. I didn't connect the pre-amp for this test. I aimed the antenna in the direction of the transmitters and at the horizon of the nearby foothills. Even without doing any fine tuning of the antenna direction, the TV was able to find all the digital channels except virtual channel 45.1. This was fine since channel 30.1 (CW) was the weakest channel I was interested in.
I had bought all the materials to mount the antenna on the roof. However, I was surprised by how easy it was to tune the channels so even though I'd read that an antenna in the attic has a hard time getting a signal, especially with us in a fringe area, I decided to give it a go anyway. In addition, we have stone coated steel shingles which I had assumed would completely block out any signal. I placed the antenna in the attic and roughly aimed it towards the transmitters. To my surprise, the TV was still able to tune the digital channels up to 30.1. Again, this was direct connection to the one TV over about 100 feet of RG-6 and without a pre-amp. My wife was not looking forward to having this big antenna on our roof so this was really good news. So with my wife's help down at the TV, I fine-tuned the antenna's direction, hooked up the pre-amp, and added a 4-way splitter on the line. With this setup, my Samsung TV was reporting about 25.5 dB SNR on channel 30.1. This is the channel that my tvfool report listed as -5.0 dB (NM). I'm still a little stunned that I was able to pick up this channel through my steel roof.
Anyway, I returned all my other hardware that I was going to use to mount the antenna on the roof. I'll monitor my signal throughout the year, especially during snow and rain storms. I can move the antenna to the roof if needed but as it looks now, I should be able to keep it inside the attic.
I've ordered an AVerMedia A188 HD Duet (Amazon has them on special for $50 right now) to be able to record two programs at once to my media center computer. I'll be calling Comcast tomorrow to tell them the good news (bad news for them). Thanks for all your help.
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