KPPX-TV

KPPX-TV (channel 51) is a television station licensed to Tolleson, Arizona, United States, serving the Phoenix area as an affiliate of Ion Television. The station is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, and maintains offices on Camelback Road on the northeast side of Phoenix; its transmitter is located atop South Mountain on the city's south side.

History

In February 1981, during an open window for low-power TV station applications, San Bernardino, California–based Community Service Television Company applied for a construction permit to build a translator station on channel 51, to serve Phoenix from atop South Mountain.[1]

Two years later, on March 28, 1983, Saul Dresner filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allot UHF channel 51 to Tolleson, Arizona, for a full power television station. He presented sufficient evidence to support the allotment and expressed interest in applying for a station, and the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on June 9.[2] On May 29, 1984, having received Mexican concurrence, the FCC allotted UHF channel 51 to Tolleson.[3]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

In 1997, the FCC specified UHF channel 52 as the transition digital channel for KPPX-TV and granted a construction permit to build transition facilities on March 1, 2001.[35][36] The station began digital operations pursuant to Program Test Authority on November 1, 2002, and the FCC granted the license to cover digital operations on December 20.[37][38] Because its pre-transition digital channel was outside the range of core frequencies designated by the FCC (channels 2-51)—the high band UHF channels (52-69) being removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition—KPPX-TV chose channel 51 for its permanent digital television operations, where it would move at the end of the digital transition, which, at the time, was scheduled for February 17, 2009. Although the DTV Delay Act became law on February 11, 2009, postponing the required analog shutoff until June 12, 2009, KPPX made the decision to proceed with final conversion on February 17, which was approved by the FCC.[39]

KPPX-TV shut down its analog signal on February 17, 2009, the original target date for full-power television stations in the United States to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which Congress had moved the previous month to June 12). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 52, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 51.[40][41]

FCC spectrum repack

In January 2016, KPPX-TV submitted a petition to the FCC to change RF channel from 51 to 31 as part of an agreement to allow T-Mobile to begin service in the adjacent 700 MHz band. Finding that the petition warranted consideration, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in April, and approved the Tolleson allotment change in June.[42][43] The following month, KPPX-TV submitted an application to change channels, which was immediately approved by the FCC.[44] The station completed the move to channel 31 in October.[45]

KPPX-TV was assigned channel 14 in the FCC Spectrum Repack, and was scheduled to change channels in Phase 10, to be completed by July 3, 2020.[46][47]

callsign	KPPX-TV
city	Tolleson, Arizona
digital	31 (UHF)
virtual	51
affiliations	51.1: Ion Television for others, see
owner	Inyo Broadcast Holdings (sale to the E. W. Scripps Company pending)
licensee	Inyo Broadcast Licenses LLC
location	Tolleson–Phoenix, Arizona
country	United States
founded	December 21, 1988
airdate	February 15, 1999
callsign meaning	Phoenix's Pax TV (reflecting network's former branding)
former channel numbers	Analog: 51 (UHF, 1988–2009) Digital: 52 (UHF, 2002–2009), 51 (UHF, 2009–2016)
erp	1,000 kW
haat	536 m
facility id	26655
coordinates	33.33422°N, -112.06125°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://iontelevision.com/

History

Sale to Scripps and resale to Inyo

Pornography controversy

Newscasts

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

FCC spectrum repack

External links

References