KSPX-TV (channel 29) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

, United States, airing programming from the

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented en ...

network. It is owned and operated by the

Ion Media Ion Media (formerly known as Paxson Communications Corporation and Ion Media Networks) was an American broadcasting company that owned and operated over 71 television stations in most major American markets (through its television stations group ...

subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, and maintains offices on Prospect Park Drive in

Rancho Cordova Rancho Cordova is a city in Sacramento County, California, United States which was incorporated in 2003. It is part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area. The population was 64,776 at the 2010 census. In 2010 and 2019, Rancho Cordova was named ...

; its transmitter is located at TransTower in

Walnut Grove, California Walnut Grove is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sacramento County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade– Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,542 at the 2010 census, up from 669 at ...

History

The station first signed on the air on August 27, 1990, as KCMY; it originally operated as the area's

Home Shopping Club HSN, an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Qurate Retail Group, which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. Based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Flor ...

affiliate before joining the InfoMall TV network in the mid-1990s. In 1995, then-CBS affiliate KXTV agreed to provide some programming to KCMY in order to give it more of a competitive edge in the Sacramento market. KCMY began airing the tabloid show '' Geraldo'' at 10 p.m. as well as the KXTV-produced health magazine show ''Pulse''. Paxson Communications (now Ion Media) purchased the station in 1998, changing its

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally ass ...

to KSPX. The station became a charter owned-and-operated station of its new Pax TV network (later i: Independent Television and now Ion) on August 31, 1998. KSPX became the second English-language station and third overall station in the Sacramento market to be owned and operated by its affiliated network.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: In 2014, KSPX began simulcasting

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...

affiliate KCSO-LD on digital subchannel 33.2. The simulcast was discontinued in October 2021.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KSPX shut down its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 29, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 48, using PSIP to display KSPX-TV's

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

as 29 on digital television receivers.

Reduced power operation

On August 30, 2019, the station temporarily reduced power, per

special temporary authority Special Temporary Authority (STA) in U.S. broadcast law is a type of broadcast license which temporarily allows a broadcast station to operate outside of its normal technical or legal parameters. In the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) st ...

(STA), from 1,000 kW to 4.3 kW to accommodate relocation of its transmitter site. Power was increased to 48 kW on November 16, 2019. Another increase to 388 kW took place on April 29, 2020. The completion of the main facility and subsequent increase to 1,000 kW took place later in 2020.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kspx-Tv Ion Television affiliates Court TV affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Bounce TV affiliates Defy TV affiliates TrueReal affiliates Newsy affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1990 1990 establishments in California SPX-TV