WPXA-TV

WPXA-TV, virtual channel 14 (UHF digital channel 16),[3] is an Ion Television owned-and-operated station licensed to Rome, Georgia, United States and serving the Atlanta television market. The station is owned by West Palm Beach, Florida-based Ion Media Networks (the former Paxson Communications). WPXA-TV's offices are located on North Cobb Parkway (US 41) in Marietta, and its transmitter is located on Bear Mountain, near the Cherokee–Bartow county line.

WPXA-TV
Rome/Atlanta, Georgia
United States
CityRome, Georgia
ChannelsDigital: 16 (UHF)
Virtual: 14 (PSIP)
BrandingIon Television
SloganPositively Entertaining
Programming
Affiliations
47.1: Telemundo[1]
Ownership
OwnerIon Media Networks
(Ion Media Atlanta License, Inc.)
History
First air date
February 29, 1988 (1988-02-29)[2]
Former call signs
  • WAWA-TV (1988–1990)
  • WTLK-TV (1990–1998)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog:
  • 14 (UHF, 1988–2009)
  • Digital:
  • 51 (UHF, 2002–2015)
  • 31 (UHF, 2015–2019)
Call sign meaning
PaX TV Atlanta
Technical information
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID51969
ClassDT
ERP687 kW
HAAT596 m (1,955 ft)
Transmitter coordinates34°18′48″N 84°38′55″W
Links
Public license information
Profile
LMS
Websiteiontelevision.com

The station's broadcast range extends into parts of Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee and even the southwest corner of North Carolina. However, terrain shielding not accounted for in radio propagation models prevents this from regularly occurring, due to the north Georgia mountains.

On cable, WPXA-TV is available on Charter Spectrum channel 11 in both standard and high definition, and on Comcast Xfinity channels 12 (SD) and 812 (HD).

History

The station was issued a construction permit in 1984 on Channel 14 as WZGA, but never made it to air. The station went on-air February 29, 1988 as WAWA, with studios on Shorter Avenue in Rome and transmitter on nearby Mount Alto. The station was owned by Sudbrink Broadcasting of West Palm Beach, Florida, and had a general entertainment format of low-budget shows, public domain movies, and local newscasts. It also aired several ABC, CBS and NBC shows that WSB-TV (channel 2), WAGA-TV (channel 5) and WXIA-TV (channel 11) turned down.

In 1990, the station changed its calls to WTLK-TV and moved its studios to Marietta and transmitter to Bear Mountain (west of Canton). Rebranding as "Talk TV", it featured national talk shows like Phil Donahue and Sally Jessy Raphael. It also aired local shows (with TV studio audiences) with WSB's Neal Boortz, former Miss America Suzette Charles, Hosea Williams, Michael Young, WVEE's Mike Roberts, WGST's Brian Wilson and others, while also continuing to air some preempted network programs. However, the station never took off in metro Atlanta during the days before the must-carry rules for cable systems. The other independent on the fringe of the market, Athens-licensed WNGM-TV (channel 34, now WUVG), had the same problem. Later in the 1990s, WTLK ran blocks of country music videos along with infomercials.

In 1996, the station was sold to Paxson Communications. The must-carry rules for cable systems took effect about the same time. WTLK, WNGM and WATC would be added to most metro cable systems immediately. The station's format consisted of infomercials by day and the Worship Network at night. Pax TV was launched in 1998 and WTLK became WPXA as a charter affiliate. Pax TV later became i: Independent Television and is now Ion Television. During the Pax era, WPXA aired a late-night replay of WXIA's 11 p.m. newscast. Most Pax stations had similar arrangements with the NBC affiliates in their markets.

The station's broadcast tower on Bear Mountain was also the first location for WCHK-FM 105.5, now WBZY 105.7 on Sweat Mountain.

Rome also had a previous full-power TV station (ABC/CBS/NBC/DuMont) WROM-TV channel 9, from 1953–1957. That was later moved to Chattanooga and became what is now WTVC.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[1]
14.1720p16:9IONIon Television
14.2480i4:3quboQubo
14.3IONPlusIon Plus
14.4ShopIon Shop
14.5QVCQVC
14.6HSNHSN
47.116:9TLMDSimulcast of WKTB-CD / Telemundo

WPXA-TV also has a Mobile DTV feed of subchannel 14.2, labelled "WPXA - ION", broadcasting at 3.67 Mbit/s. This is the highest bitrate of any Metro Atlanta television station mobile feed.[4][5]

The Worship Network was originally on 14.4 until the end of January 2010, when it was dropped from all Ion stations.

The station had selected 14 as its permanent digital channel in the digital channel election, but had to remain on 51 due to a co-channel RF interference conflict.[6]

In August 2013, the station contracted with local Telemundo affiliate WKTB-CD (channel 47) to provide a full-market signal for the low-power station, along with probable retransmission consent to fold it in with WPXA's negotiations. This precluded WPXA from Ion's agreement to carry the over-the-air signal of Home Shopping Network on its DT6 subchannel later in the year, though HSN already is carried by W45DX-D (channel 45) over-the-air in the market.

On July 6, 2015, WPXA-TV was licensed by the FCC to shift their digital signal from channel 51 to channel 31 to allow T-Mobile US to use the adjacent channel 52 frequency for LTE data and voice services without interference, requiring a tuner re-scan for viewers to continue to receive the station; using PSIP to display WPXA-TV's virtual channel as 14 on digital television receivers.

In September 2019, WPXA-TV moved from physical channel 31 (583.31 MHz) to 16 (493.31 MHz) as a result of the spectrum incentive auction, which revoked channels 38 to 51 from the UHF TV bandplan, repacking those stations into channels 2 to 36 and forcing some stations already in the lower band to move around to accommodate them. This change was expected to occur by 12 a.m. on September 6, which was ATSC tuner "rescan day" for most stations in the Atlanta media market. However for WPXA this was delayed to the 11th for unknown reasons, in turn preventing WPCH-TV 17.x from changing from RF channel 20 to 31 until then.[7]

References
  1. "Digital TV Market Listing for WPXA". RabbitEars.Info. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  2. The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says January 15, while the Television and Cable Factbook says February 29.
  4. http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=atscmph
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 17, 2016. Retrieved March 24, 2012.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. FCC application BFRECT-20050210ADZ
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