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am also going to test the antenna's radiance via network analyzer (EE by trade)
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...scratches head.... I've tested numerous antennas with a VNA, but I've never tested "radiance".
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to see if there are any obvious reasons why I might be missing 10 & 12,
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The obvious thing is that the antenna you built is a UHF antenna (it's a copy of an old Radio Shack/Channel Master design) operating between 450 and 800 MHz. Channels 7-13 occupy 174-216 MHz. Antennas that are too small electrically do not resonate well and you usually suffer extreme return loss which, in an ATSC system, results in significant reflections in your cable and at the input to the tuner. Such reflections behave the same as short-delay multipath and, if excessive, can cause the tuner's function to fail.
Indoor reception of VHF is often complicated by:
1) Lower transmitter power which doesn't yield enough field strength to adequately penetrate construction materials.
2) Localized sources of RFI from in-home electrical/electronics stuff, even the TV set itself, can readily wipe out VHF reception.
3)
Effective VHF antennas require 2X-4X size increase over a comparable UHF antenna making them unwelcome in consumer's living space. Smaller VHF elements are therefore usually implemented which, combined with lower signal powers indoors, often causes erratic reception.