WHPX-TV (channel 26) is a television station licensed to New London, Connecticut, United States, serving as the Ion Television affiliate for the Hartford– New Haven market. The station is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, and maintains offices in New London and a transmitter on

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in Farmington, Connecticut. Prior to 2021, WHPX-TV's facilities served as the main studio for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) purposes for

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

WLWC and former sister station WPXQ-TV in Providence, Rhode Island.

History

The station began operation on September 15, 1986, as

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...

WTWS, with transmitter in the Oakdale neighborhood of Montville near Lake Konomoc. It was owned by C&S Broadcasting with majority owner Neil Denenberg and ran a low-budget general entertainment format. In 1988, the station took over some programming from WHCT-TV (channel 18, now Univision affiliate WUVN) as a result of that station's financial problems. In 1990, the station also began to acquire programming that WTXX (channel 20, now WCCT-TV) chose not to renew. It also offered to pick up WTXX's programming inventory in 1992, but WTXX's owner (

Renaissance Broadcasting Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstein, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997. The company was headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. History Renaissan ...

) declined. The station had added more

infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...

s to its lineup by 1993. Two years later, it was sold to Paxson Communications, and switched to Paxson's standard schedule of

religious programming Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

in the morning, infomercials in the afternoon and evenings, and worship programming overnight after affiliating with inTV. The rights to its programming were acquired by

LIN Television LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the six major U.S. television networks. One of the remaining stations was a low powered weather station in Ind ...

, which placed those shows on WTVU (channel 59, now WCTX). Paxson then began programming WHCT in 1997, and sold WTWS to Roberts Broadcasting. Roberts, in turn, sold the station to DP Media the following year. However, DP Media was owned by—and named for—Devon Paxson, son of Paxson Communications founder Bud Paxson. Paxson then cut its ties with WHCT and took control of WTWS. The station then affiliated with Pax TV (the predecessor to Ion Television) that year, and changed its call letters to WHPX-TV to reflect its affiliation. Paxson bought DP Media in 2000. From 2001 until 2005, WHPX re-aired newscasts produced by NBC owned-and-operated station WVIT (channel 30).

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WHPX-TV 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 26, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
/ref> The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 34 to channel 26. In conjunction with the

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of Connecticut television stations on August 2, 2019, WHPX now transmits on channel 28 from

Farmington Farmington may refer to: Places Canada *Farmington, British Columbia *Farmington, Nova Scotia (disambiguation) United States * Farmington, Arkansas *Farmington, California * Farmington, Connecticut *Farmington, Delaware * Farmington, Georgia ...

where many Connecticut television station transmitters are located.

References

External links

Ion Television website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whpx-Tv Ion Television affiliates Bounce TV affiliates Court TV affiliates Grit (TV network) affiliates Defy TV affiliates TrueReal affiliates Scripps News affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1986 1986 establishments in Connecticut New London, Connecticut HPX-TV