Practical diversity combining at receivers (Maximal Ratio Combining & Equal Gain Combining) I am trying to perform practical diversity combining implemented in GNU Radio by using Ettus N210 USRPs, one as a transmitter and two as receivers.

To compare Equal Gain Combining (EGC) and Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) techniques, I simply add the same received signal from two different receivers constructively for EGC and multiply each branch with a gain derived from square root of its signal-to-noise ratio (signal+noise/noise) before adding for MRC.

Contrary to the literature, for a few cases MRC is not performing better than EGC. I have noticed that when there is no signal, the noise level for both receivers is not same. In theory, it is assumed that all branches have equal mean power and noise level. 

Now, I am confused. Should I attenuate/amplify the received signal (signal+noise) from each receiver to make the mean signal power same across both receivers or should I attenuate/amplify the received signal (signal+noise) in a way that noise level become same in the signal from both receivers before performing EGC.

Once I am done with EGC, should I simply multiply the weight at each branch to perform MRC?
Since, in theory, it is assumed that long term average SNR and noise remain same across all branches, first, I configured my USRPs to have same noise levels and then placed them in a way that average SNR across both branches also remain the same.
Finally, simply combining them or first multiplying instantaneous SNR factor with each branch leads to EGC and MRC, respectively.