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WPXR-TV
Roanoke–Lynchburg, Virginia; United States;
City	Roanoke, Virginia
Channels	Digital: 27 (UHF); Virtual: 38;
Branding	Ion
Programming
Affiliations	38.1: Ion Television; for others, see § Subchannels;
Ownership
Owner	Ion Media; (Ion Media License Company, LLC);
History
Founded	May 23, 1983
First air date	January 3, 1986 (38 years ago)
Former call signs	WEFC (1986–1998)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 38 (UHF, 1986–2009); Digital: 36 (UHF, 2002–2019);
Former affiliations	Religious (1986–1997); inTV (1997–1998);
Call sign meaning	Pax TV Roanoke
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	70251
ERP	609 kW
HAAT	623.6 m (2,046 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	37°11′56″N 80°9′0″W / 37.19889°N 80.15000°W
Links
Public license information	Public file; LMS;
Website	iontelevision.com

WPXR-TV (channel 38) is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. The station is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, and maintains a transmitter atop Poor Mountain in unincorporated southwestern Roanoke County.

History

The station signed on January 3, 1986, as WEFC, a religious station owned by Evangel Foursquare Church (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 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 produced a 10 p.m. newscast, News 7 Primetime, for WEFC; the newscast was canceled due to low ratings.^[3] From 2000 to 2005, WPXR aired rebroadcasts of WSLS-TV's newscasts as part of a joint sales agreement between Paxson Communications and WSLS owner Media General.^[4]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WPXR-TV^[5]
Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
38.1	720p	16:9	ION	Ion Television
38.2	480i		CourtTV	Court TV
38.3			Laff	Laff
38.4			Mystery	Ion Mystery
38.5			IONPlus	Ion Plus
38.6			Grit	Grit
38.7			Jewelry	Jewelry TV
38.8			HSN	HSN
38.9			QVC	QVC

Analog-to-digital conversion

WPXR-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 38, on June 12, 2009, the official date on 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,^[6] using virtual channel 38.