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DIY antennas are viable... YMMV. I have two home-built antennas in service, one is a 4-bay with reflector screen in my attic receiving two stations 60+ miles north of me... so yes they can work.
Your description makes me wonder if there are any satellite diplexers or switches in the coax from your roof. You can reuse RG-6/Quad if it's not damaged or wet inside, but most satellite distribution components will not pass OTA frequencies.
The 4-bay design in the YouTube video is not going to provide much on channel 7 KGO (ABC) or channel 12 KNTV (NBC).
Because you have a 2 edge path looking at the SF towers, I would recommend a mid-size H-VHF/UHF like the Antennacraft HBU-33 (That will give you the ability to receive OTA channel 7 and up). It would be interesting to see how high you need to go to see over the hill closest to you (You can re-run your TVF report at different elevations). I suspect that higher will be measurably better.
If you are not going to split the signal, you should not need an amplifier. If you do split in the future and loose a station or two you could add a high-input preamp like a Winegard HDP-269... But don't expect an amplifier to fix the wrong choice or placement of the antenna.
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If the well is dry and you don't see rain on the horizon, you'll need to dig the hole deeper. (If the antenna can't get the job done, an amp won't fix it.)
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Last edited by GroundUrMast; 26-Jan-2011 at 11:06 PM.
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