Hello fellow Rochestarian!
I am also a cord cutter, I am on the other side of the city in Greece.
I would suggest looking into a Tin Lee Combiner. It could get a bit pricey. He is out of Toronto.
Also, several of the local Radio Shacks are going out of business and have FM traps. I picked up 4 for $2/each.
I haven't had much luck with Syracuse, other than the Fox affiliate.
I do get Ch. 27 (Global). I also get RF 26 (TVO) and 12 (CBC - CHEX) from time to time.
Based on my tests, I come up 2-3% short on signal strength/quality based on the on the output of my HD Homerun.
I have a dumb questions for the Rochestarians... Do you guys have an extension ladder that I could happen to borrow? I don't have one and don't want to pay $300-$400 for something I'll use once in awhile.
I am trying to squeeze the last few percent of performance on RF 12 so that the wife and I can get some additional programming and would like to add an FM trap, since we have several local FM channels that could interfere - 100.5, 101.3, 102.7, 103.9. I also want to see if my RCA amp is overloading and possibly swapping it out.
I did also buy 2 10' masts and have an extra HDB8x, but that is a future project. My idea was to point that one at Buffalo to get the Buffalo stations and point my 8200 at CHEX 12 and combine them with a USVJ.