Thanks for the responses ... I do understand and (very much appreciate!) that the gurus on here are volunteers. I was just getting a little nervous, since I saw that my request had received a lot of views but no responses and others were getting lots of responses. I wanted to make sure I was following all the proper protocols ... evidently some requests are just more interesting/puzzling than than mine!
My existing antenna is approximately 176" long and the total width of the longest elements is 107" ... possibly an earlier version of the Winegard HD8200U? Here are a couple more of pictures taken in the dark tonight:
Front end
Mounting clamps & coax connection
Side view
I'm not sure how old the antenna is (we bought the house - and the antenna - about 9 years ago) and I've read that antenna performance can start deteriorating after 10-15 years. Also, one of the longest two elements is broken/missing on the back end of the antenna, so I figured that now is as good a time as any to replace it.
Since I only have one bite at this apple, I just wanted to see if anyone had strong opinions on a better setup, e.g., you'll be better off with X preamp and Z distribution amp with the Winegard HD8200U. Size isn't really an issue and, with the most expensive OTA antenna i see being cheaper than a month of cable/satellite, neither is cost. The first channel I need is 7, and I don't expect to ever need 2 or 3.
I did a quick comparison of the performance data from the Winegard HD7698P and HD8200U and came up with the following:
HD7698P vs. HD8200U comparison Spreadsheet
HD7698 Spec Sheet
HD8200U Spec Sheet
In addition to being much narrower in size, the 7698 appears to have about 3dB of gain over the 8200 in the frequencies I need, i.e., channels 7 and 28-43 (a result of eliminating the low VHF band?). Is the 7698 the way to go for me?
Again ... thanks for the help!