The station first signed on the air on June 1, 1988 as WHKE, operating as a religious station; it was originally owned by LeSEA Broadcasting. The station's original transmitter was located in Kenosha, just north of the Illinois–Wisconsin state line. Paxson Communications purchased the station in 1995 and turned it into an all-infomercial format as part of the Infomall TV Network, though it also aired the daily greyhound racing recap program from Kenosha's Dairyland Greyhound Park for many years after WVTV stopped carrying that show in 1996, which met the station's local programming requirements. tower. In the late 1990s after its purchase by Paxson, the station moved its transmitter to a tower in northern Racine County which was shared with WEZY. Despite the reason for the transmitter move being to serve more of the Milwaukee market, the southerly tower location from the traditional northeast side tower farm operated at a lower power, mainly to keep the channel 55 allocation open for an eventual new station in Wausau, limited the station's coverage area in southeastern Wisconsin; this caused the station to not be available in Fond du Lac and Sheboygan counties, except through cable. The station became a charter affiliate of Pax TV when it launched on August 31, 1998, at which time it changed its call letters to WPXE-TV. At times during summer due to tropospheric propagation in the analog era, WHKE/WPXE would receive heavy interference a few times and even have its signal overwhelmed by that of another distant station on channel 55, WBNX-TV from Cleveland, which broadcast at a stronger power and had its signal brought over Lake Michigan into Wisconsin due to Lake Erie's heavy "trop effect" amplifying their signal across northern Indiana and lower Michigan.
Programming
The station was formerly involved a local marketing agreement with WTMJ-TV that resulted from that station's affiliated network, NBC, having a stake in Paxson Communications/Pax TV; this resulted in the two stations sharing programming, WPXE airing repeats of WTMJ's evening newscasts for several years, and WTMJ selling advertising time for WPXE. This agreement was discontinued on July 1, 2005 after Pax TV rebranded as i: Independent Television. The station airs the entire Ion Television schedule, with the only local programming consisting ofpaid programs for local businesses, and a public affairs program, Ion Milwaukee, which airs at various times throughout the week.
Digital television
Analog-to-digital conversion
WPXE-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 55, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 40. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition with that portion of the band being sold to Qualcomm for use in its nationwide MediaFLO system. When Qualcomm introduced MediaFLO to Chicago in 2008, WPXE-TV agreed to accept potential interference to 28.87% of the population within its Grade B contour resulting from the service, mostly occurring in fringe areas of Lake County, Illinois which also received Ion service from Chicago sister stationWCPX-TV. WPXE's digital signal and subchannels were not affected. On February 2, 2009, the station converted its main digital signal to air high definition content in the 720p format, ahead of Ion's eventual launch of its high definition program schedule. After various tests, however, Ion decided to wait on a full transition and switched back to 480i in April 2009 due to its concerns about a seamless digital transition. Full permanent HD service for WPXE launched on April 28, 2010, with the station also receiving HD cable coverage via digital channel 1015 on Time Warner Cable and digital channel 615 on Charter Communications.
