Raleigh North Carolina Antenna Analysis / Help

Hey All,

I cut the cable about 2 or 3 years ago and I've struggled to get decent OTA reception the entire time.

I currently have a directional antenna (RCA ANT751R Outdoor Antenna) connected to a generic radio shack pre-amp, connected to 50 feet of RG-6 (per-fabricated terminations - I didn't crimp on the ends), connected to a wall jack, connected to the power-supply for the pre-amp then split to SiliconDust TV tuners.

I have the antenna connected to the highest point on my house outside and facing where I believe all the stations are broadcasting from. Slight tweaks to the direction the antenna points results in me getting different sets of channels (i.e. point a little North, get CBS and FOX, move it a little South, get NBC and CBS, etc).

http://antennaweb.org/ indicated I needed a 'red' medium directional antenna. TV fool analysis results here:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d1ddae11b481f1b

My next plan was to buy one of those bigger antennas or an omni directional even though antennaweb didn't recommend it. After that, I was going to hook up a rotator. Any thoughts or comments?

Thanks!
~Mike

Thanks for the response gbynum!

What stations I am trying to get?
Just the majors (NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX) is the primary goal. PBS is a nice to have and always seems to come in regardless of what I do.

Remove amplification experiment #1:
In this experiment, I removed power from the pre-amp by removing many parts of my setup. What remained was just the antenna to the un-powered pre-amp to the 50 feet of RG-6 run directly to a single tuner. I couldn't pick up anything at all when I scanned the channels with this setup.

Remove amplification experiment #2:
Added back the pre-amp power thing but did not plug it into the wall so I had: antenna to the un-powered pre-amp to the 50 feet of RG-6 to the un-connected pre-amp power thing run directly to a single tuner. Again, I get nothing at all.

I suspect that I have to remove the pre-amp completely from the circuit which means getting a ladder and pulling it off the antenna itself. I would have thought it'd act as a pass through device if unpowered but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'll report back after I get a ladder and pull that sucker off.

~Mike

So I got myself a ladder and pulled the the pre-amp off (both parts of it). My digital tuners show three metrics: signal strength, signal quality and symbol quality. The signal strength has decreased without the preamp but I have the same problem of only getting a subset of the channels (I currently have it pointed a little more West so I pick up NBC and CBS; if I got a little East, I pick up NBC and FOX; I no longer get ABC).

I'm thinking my options are trying a multi-directional antenna or a rotator or a 'better' pre-amp (I had a cheapy radio shack one before). I'm not really sure what the best approach would be.