I'm a long time Time Warner HD subscriber who is thinking about switching to DirecTV in the very near future...mainly for the numerous HD channels. I have a question about the types of dishes DirecTV uses.

My local DirecTV retailer told me that I would receive a 5LNB dish, instead of the 3LNB dish, because of where I live. He said that, due to my zip code and the fact that I would be receiving Cincinnati OH locals in HD, I would be receiving the 3LNB dish because the Cincinnati channels are only bounced off of 3 satellites. I was told that the 5LNB dishes were only installed for those subscribers, including those subscribers in the nearby Dayton OH market (about 1 mile up the road from my house), who receive channels off of 5 satellites.

Is this true? He also told me that there is absolutely no difference in the quality of signal that I would be receiving...is this also true? I thought that I had just read recently that 3LNB dishes cannot receive all of DirecTV's HD channels and that folks would need to upgrade to the 5LNB model. Does the number of LNB's have any impact on my HD viewing or the number of HD channels I can receive? I always assumed that 5 was better than 3.

I'm not sure if I trust the salesman because he also said that he wasn't sure if I could attach an eSata hard drive to the HR-21 (this is the only HD-DVR receiver he said that they currently install) to expand the recording size.

Thanks in advance for your answers.