WPXR-TV (channel 38) 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 earth ...

licensed to

Roanoke, Virginia Roanoke ( ) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 100,011, making it the 8th most populous city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the largest city in Virginia west of Richmond. It is lo ...

, United States, broadcasting 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 enter ...

network to the Roanoke– Lynchburg

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

. The station is

owned and operated In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

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 The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

, and maintains a transmitter atop

Poor Mountain Poor Mountain is a ridge of high peaks located in Roanoke County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Virginia. At 3,928 feet, Poor Mountain is the tallest mountain in the immediate area. Poor Mountain has the largest known population, by far, of ...

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

southwestern

Roanoke County Roanoke County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 96,929. Its county seat is Salem, but the county administrative offices are located in the unincorporated Cave ...

History

The station signed on January 3, 1986 as WEFC, a

religious Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...

station owned by Evangel

Foursquare Church The Foursquare Church is an Evangelical Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in 1923 by preacher Aimee Semple McPherson. The headquarters are in Los Angeles, California, United States. History The church has its origins in a vision of " ...

(hence the call letters). It was the first non-network affiliated station in Roanoke, and the first new UHF station in the market to sign on following the demise of WRLU channel 27 nearly 11 years earlier. Coincidentally, a new channel 27, under the calls of WVFT, would sign on two months after WEFC, carrying a similar format. Paxson Communications bought the station in 1997 and made it part of the all-

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 ...

inTV network. It joined Pax TV (later i: Independent Television and now Ion Television) on the network's launch in 1998.

Newscasts

From September 1996 until August 1997,

WDBJ WDBJ (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Roanoke– Lynchburg market. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Danville-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WZBJ, chann ...

produced a 10 p.m. newscast, ''News 7 Primetime'', for WEFC; the newscast was canceled due to low ratings. From 2000 to 2005, WPXR aired rebroadcasts of

WSLS-TV WSLS-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, serving the Roanoke– Lynchburg market as an affiliate of NBC. Owned by Graham Media Group, the station maintains studios on Fifth Street in Roanoke, an ...

's newscasts as part of a

joint sales agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or time ...

between Paxson Communications and WSLS owner

Media General Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch' ...

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 ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WPXR-TV discontinued regular programming on 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 38, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 36, using

PSIP The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the A ...

to display the station'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 its former UHF analog channel 38.

References

External links

*
Site of the Week – Roanoke, Virginia
nbsp;– discusses WPXR's antennas Ion Television affiliates Court TV affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Ion Mystery affiliates Defy TV affiliates TrueReal affiliates Scripps News affiliates E. W. Scripps Company television stations Television channels and stations established in 1986 PXR-TV 1986 establishments in Virginia {{Virginia-tv-station-stub