We need to know if someone with the Welcome pack and an OTA adaptor is able to use theirs. If they can, I bet my solution will work. Upgrade to the Top 120, get HD for life, and at some point downgrade back to the welcome package. Seems like if this was their policy someone long before now would have posted about this but it is entirely possible most who have the Welcome package came from having a higher package and HD for life.
Interestingly enough, I just did exactly that last month, but only to get the HDFFL tag added to my account. I did not have any problems with the OTA adapter before or after doing that.
However, I have seen the message that the OP is talking about on my other receiver, a ViP211, at a time when my account had never been above Locals Only or Welcome Pack. At one point, I had deactivated that receiver on my Dish account, but I still had distant networks from All American Direct. When I only had standard-def distant networks, the receiver would act exactly as the OP describes. I could scan the local channels and save the list in the setup menu, but I would get the pop-up and the channels did not appear in the guide. I subscribed to the HD distant networks when they became available, and that seemed to be enough to authorize the OTA tuner and the HD free preview channels, because they started working at that point. However, the policy must have changed at some point before AAD stopped offering HD distants, because after I was forced to switch back to standard-def distants, the OTA tuner and HD free preview channels continued to work. So, it would seem like any subscription should be enough to authorize the OTA tuner and HD free preview channels. On the other hand, there could simply be a glitch with my receiver, since that receiver is now completely deactivated, and I can still use it to watch OTA channels and HD free preview channels, along with any free standard-def channels.
When I try to just type in the ota channel number it goes to dish channel 72.
Those aren't different versions of your locals, that's their actual channel number designation. Your receiver "maps" them to the channel numbers you're familiar with.
It sounds like his receiver isn't mapping the local channels to the lower channel numbers.