There was period of time when if Locals were available, they were included whether you wanted them or not. Sure, you can remove them now, but doing so with the malfunctioning OTA Dongle defeats the purpose.
Obviously, if it were that important, I would be trying to take action against Dish. But the OTA was purchased years ago, so there is no warranty. I should have returned it as soon as I bought it since it didn't work out of the box, but it was one of those, "we're working on it, please be patient" situations. Eventually an update came down from Dish and the dongle worked like it was designed. A year later another update came and broke the Dongle again. That was a year ago and I'll moan here every chance I get. Maybe Dish will get tired of my trashing Hopper OTA Modules every chance I get and will send me a free one to shut me up.
I may end up buying Claude a round or three over in the Pub and trade Dish stories. Really, I continue to enjoy Dish, I will never get Comcast, and since AT&T bought DirecTV and killed U-verse, that option is gone. If my AT&T U-verse Internet was faster I would probably ditch the Dish and go to full IPTV-mode.
Edit: Hmmmm, my whine made me think I should go open a proper bottle of wine.