| Kenosha / Milwaukee, Wisconsin | |
|---|---|
| Branding | ION Television |
| Channels | Digital: 40 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 55.1 Ion Television 55.2 qubo 55.3 ION Life |
| Owner | Ion Media Networks |
| First air date | June 1, 1988 |
| Call letters' meaning | PaX MilwaukEe |
| Former callsigns | WHKE (1988-1998) |
| Former affiliations | LeSEA (1988-1995) Paxson Paid Programming (1995-1998) Pax TV (1998-2005) i (2005-2007) |
| Transmitter power | 830 kW |
| Height | 358 m |
| Facility ID | 37104 |
| Website | IONline.tv |
WPXE-TV, digital channel 40, is the Ion Television O&O station for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the city of license thirty miles south in Kenosha. However, the digital transmitter is situated within the traditional tower farm site on Milwaukee's northeast side with the antenna located on the Milwaukee Public Television tower, and the station offices straddling the city line between Milwaukee and Glendale . Its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin and parts of northeastern Illinois, including the cities of Racine, Kenosha, and Waukesha, Ozaukee, Fond du Lac, Dodge and Sheboygan counties.
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The station signed on in June 1988 as WHKE, a religious station owned by LeSEA. The call letters stood for World Harvest Kenosha Evangelism. The station's first analog transmitter was located in Kenosha, just north of the Illinois/Wisconsin stateline on the tower which is still currently in use by WWDV (96.9). In the late 90s after its purchase by Paxson, the station moved their transmitter to a tower in northern Racine County near Interstate 94 which was shared (and continues to be used by) WEZY (92.1). Despite the reason for the transmitter move being to serve more of the Milwaukee market, the southerly tower location from the traditional northeast side tower farm and a lower power, both mainly to keep the channel 55 allocation open for an eventual new station in Wausau (which would eventually be given to Wittenberg-licensed WFXS in 1999), limited the station's coverage area in southeastern Wisconsin; this caused the station to not be available in Fond du Lac and Sheboygan counties except through cable.
At times during summer due to tropospheric propagation in the analog era, WHKE/WPXE would receive heavy interference a few times and even have their signal overwhelmed by that of another distant channel 55, WBNX-TV from Cleveland, Ohio, which broadcast at a stronger power and had their signal brought over Lake Michigan into Wisconsin due to Lake Erie's heavy "trop effect" amplifying their signal across northern Indiana and lower Michigan.
Paxson Communications, now ION Media, bought the station in 1995 and turned it into an all-infomercial channel, though it also included the daily greyhound racing recap program from Dairyland Greyhound Park for many years after WVTV discontinued carrying that show in 1996. It became a charter affiliate of Pax TV in 1998, at which time it adopted its current call letters.
The station formerly had a local marketing agreement with WTMJ (Channel 4) that resulted from NBC having a stake in Paxson/PAX TV, sharing programming and airing repeats of WTMJ's newscasts for several years, with WTMJ selling ad time for WPXE; Martha Stewart Living and repeats of preseason Green Bay Packers games produced for WTMJ (and live games during the 2004 Summer Olympics) also aired on WPXE. This agreement was discontinued on July 1, 2005 after the conversion of PAX into i - Independent Television, and the agreement ended. The network was renamed once again to Ion Television on January 29, 2007.
The station airs the entire Ion Television schedule, with the only local programming paid programming for local businesses, and a public affairs program, Ion Milwaukee, which airs at various times throughout the week.
This station's digital signal is multiplexed:
WPXE-DT broadcasts on digital channel 40.
| Virtual channel |
Physical channel |
Video | Aspect | Name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55.1 | 40.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WPXE-DT | Main WPXE-DT programming / Ion Television HD |
| 55.2 | 40.2 | 480i | 4:3 | qubo | Children's programming, primarily consisting of animated series |
| 55.3 | 40.3 | 480i | 4:3 | ION Life | Lifestyle and entertainment programming |
WPXE-TV's digital service remained on channel 40 after the June 12, 2009 digital switchover, as channel 55 was removed from the television bandplan and sold to Qualcomm for use in its nationwide MediaFLO system. When Qualcomm introduced MediaFLO to Chicago in 2008, WPXE-TV agreed to accept potential interference to 28.87% of the population within its Grade B contour resulting from the service, mostly occurring in fringe areas of Lake County, Illinois which also received Ion service from Chicago sister station WCPX-TV (Channel 38).[1] WPXE's digital signal and subchannels were not affected; through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display its virtual channel as 55.
On February 2, 2009, the station converted their main digital signal to air HD content in 720p, ahead of Ion's eventual launch of their high definition program schedule. After various testing however Ion decided to wait on a full transition and switched back to 480i in April 2009 due to their concerns about a seamless digital transition (as days before February 2, the national transition date was moved from February 17 to June 12). Full permanent HD service for WPXE launched on April 28, 2010, with the station also receiving HD cable coverage via Channel 1015 on Time Warner Cable and Channel 615 on Charter Communications.
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