KHON-TV
KHON-TV first signed on the air on December 15, 1952 as a primary NBC affiliate, KONA-TV, occupying the channel 11 position. It also had a secondary affiliation with DuMont (which it later shared with KULA-TV, now KITV, after it signed on in 1954) until its demise in 1955. The station, which is Hawaii's second-oldest television station (behind KGMB, originally on channel 9, now on channel 5), was originally owned by Herbert Richards. Two years later in 1954, the "Honolulu Advertiser" purchased the station. On October 16, 1955, KONA changed channels from 11 to 2 due to the lower VHF positions (2 to 6) having the most powerful ERPs at the time. The channel 11 frequency now belongs to PBS member station KHET. In 1956, KONA was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, the forerunner of Combined Communications. KAII signed on in 1958, with KHAW following in 1961. In 1965, the station's call letters were changed to the current KHON-TV.
WPXE-TV
The station first signed on the air on June 1, 1988 as WHKE (for World Harvest Kenosha Evangelism), 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 (the tower is remains in use for the transmitter of radio station WWDV, 96.9 FM). Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks) purchased the station in 1995 and turned it into an all-infomercial format as part of the Infomail TV Network (inTV), though it also aired the daily greyhound racing recap program from Kenosha's Dairyland Greyhound Park for many years after WVTV (channel 18) stopped carrying that show in 1996, which met the station's local programming requirements.
In the late 1990s after its purchase by Paxson, the station moved its transmitter to a tower in northern Racine County (near Interstate 94) which was shared with WEZY (92.1 FM; now WVTY, which continues to use the tower). 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 (which would eventually be given to Wittenberg-licensed WFXS in 1999), 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 (now Ion Television) when it launched on August 31, 1998, at which time it changed its call letters to WPXE-TV.