Here's what perplexes me. I did an A/B comparison of the VHF performance of the HD7696P vs. the YA-1713. The published gain, beamwidth and F/B figures show that the HD7696P ought to meet or beat the YA-1713 on the channels of interest in my area: 8, 9 and 11.
But my analysis revealed that the HD7696P was significantly down compared to the YA-1713 as shown here after optimizing the two antennas for best reception. These measurements were done within 10 minutes of each other on a day with no tropo or VHF enhancement to skew the results.
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Channel HD7696 dB loss compared to YA-1713
WFAA/8 -4.8
KFWD/9 -5.5
KTVT/11 -5.2
1). Are the published gain figures perhaps mistaken for the VHF portion of the HD7696P?
2). If not, might I have a defective balun cartridge?
3). Otherwise, what do you think can account for this unexpected significant difference? I find it hard to fathom that I have a "lemon" antenna. I installed it properly and can confirm that the UHF performance is definitely within specs (since I measured it in a shootout against a 91XG). So the lower than expected gains are confined to the VHF frequencies.
We can continue this in the forum or I can take it to private e-mail since the data I can provide might be a bit overwhelming for this venue. I'll be glad to help troubleshoot this puzzler in any way I can.
Thanks!