Hello, new member here. Have been investigating cutting cable the last few months and have been experimenting before I make the break. Manufacturing Engineer so I understand technical problems and am persistent enough to search for help and try things, but I don't consider myself a Technology Expert. That's why I am asking for help here.

My location is North San Diego County, which puts me about 30 miles North of a VHF tower for CBS & ABC, and 40 miles Northwest of UHF tower for Fox, PBS, Independents, and NBC. I have always had cable for the 12 years I have lived here, so I never knew how OTA signals were. My house is 2 story, but kind of in a little valley, with a good size hill/plateau along the entire South skyline. No one in my neighborhood as OTA TV antennas, so I decided to try a DIY Gapless Gray Hoverman design from John Davis, and modified it a little. My first attempt did not have a reflector, and it was wildly successful. I was able to pickup around 55 channels between SD and LA. The LA channels really surprised me because I am 80 miles from those towers, but most of the signals were spotty, and would cut out frequently.

My only failure was the inability to pick up KNSD (NBC) out of SD at about 40 miles. It operates at UHF 630 MHz, but only broadcasts at 18 kW ERP. The fact that I was able to get UHF stations above and below this frequency made me think that my antenna array is correct, but the signal is too weak.

So I tried a reflector and pointed the antenna to the South. That cut my channels down to about 22 (lost the LA channels). Still couldn't get NBC. Then I made sure my compass direction was good for my house, and that it was pointed at the NBC tower (153 degrees SSE). Still no NBC, but that alignment made me lose CBS & ABC (VHF channels 180 degrees S). So I added a folded dipole 18" above my Gray Hoverman, and aimed at 180 degrees and immediately added those stations, plus a couple of VHF from LA for a total of 25 stations now.

In summary, my current system is mounted on my roof, about 5' above my chimney. It's a modified gapless Gray Hoverman aimed at 153 degrees with a folded dipole on top aimed at 180 degrees. Each antenna has a 300 ohm cable, and both of these cables are attached to a single Balun, that connects to 40' coax (2-20' cables with a connector), that attaches directly to my HDTV - no cable box. My only problem that I need help with is I still can't get NBC out of SD, but can get the other UHF stations that broadcast from the same tower.

That leads me to 3 questions:
1. Is my inability to pick up NBC because the signal is too weak? If so, can that be solved with some type of signal amplifier, and if so, what is a good recommendation? Note- several weak stations from LA are strong enough for my TV to "tune them in" during setup, but too weak to broadcast a picture when I select the channel. With this NBC-SD problem, the TV has NEVER once tuned in this station, let alone broadcast a picture.

2. Is there a better commercial antenna out their that could solve my problem rather than going with the DIY route? If so, what are the recommendations?

3. This is a little off topic. Has anyone ever designed and used a bi-directional Gray Hoverman with a reflector? In my case, I am wondering if one array pointed NW 315 degrees (for LA), and one array pointed SSE 135 degrees) for SD with a reflector grid sandwiched between the 2 arrays would work to allow me to pull in stations from both LA and SD?

That's all for now. Sorry for the long post, but any help, comments, would be much appreciated as there seem to be a lot of very knowledgeable folks on this site.