In the interest of full disclosure, and possibly to aid anyone else trying to solve reception problems in the Mobile, AL area........ my problems were bone headed, not hardware related (but I try to be man enough to admit when I'm an idiot).
I ordered the RCA ant as I posted previously. The night before it's arrival I went upstairs [
to my pole mounted, in the attic, LAVA ant. with a RS amplifier that was already proven more effecive than a Weingard I tried] at my wife's pleading behest to try and tweak the antenna so a show would be watchable.
While up there I hear "ooo, that's much better", hmm, didn't do much but ok, I trod back down 19 stairs. By the time I get there it's Blip....uuuhh....picack....blip... crap, so I go back upstairs (repeat before). So the 3rd time I do this my 2.5 year old has followed me up there and thought it was funny to shut Daddy in the attic. It's about now I notice that the GFI outlet that my amplifier is plugged into has no cute little light when the light switch is off (by now you see where this is going....)
So, I severely admonish my electrician (that'd be me
) and unscrew the light bulb by the door. A couple weeks and a returned RCA ant to Amazon later and we have yet to see a Blip or Picack.
So, moral of the story, even analytical otherwise adept people make stupid mistakes but hopefully only once and my story will get others to doublecheck all connections and power delivery
Travis