[2] 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.
[4] On November 23, Great Arizona Broadcasting Co., owned in part by Dresner, submitted an application to build a full power television station on the new allocation.
[2] K51EI was not constructed in the allotted time, and shortly before the permit expired, Community Service Television Company requested a six-month extension, which was granted in December 1994.
[18] However, in January 1995, Salvatierra secured a site license to build his station's facilities on South Mountain, then requested and received the call letters KAJW the following month.
[19][23][24] Salvatierra filed the pro forma application the following week to assign the construction permit from Hector Garcia Salvatierra to America 51, L.P.[25] The station changed its call letters to KPPX in March 1998 to reflect its pending affiliation with Paxson's new Pax TV network (now Ion), and the station signed on the air February 15, 1999, broadcasting under Program Test Authority until its license was granted on April 20, 2000.
With this purchase, Scripps divested 23 Ion-owned stations, including KPPX-TV, allowing the merged company to fully comply with the FCC local and national ownership regulations.
[32] Parent company Ion Media Networks conducted a rigorous investigation into what they called "an intolerable act of human sabotage", and shortly thereafter, announced that the employee found to be responsible had been fired, threatening further legal action.
[40][41] 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.