ION KPXB is back on the air!

After a long post-Harvey absence, plus reconfiguration to remove the defunct Airbox channels, KPXB channel 49 is back on the air. If you’ve rescanned to try to find the station during its absence, rescan again and you should find ION, Qubo, ION Life, and two shopping channels on 49.1 through 49.5.

Airbox closing down October 31

No more premium channels over the air as of October 31, as Airbox is notifying customers that it is shutting down operations at the end of the month.

The service had trouble finding its niche. It started off airing Spanish-language channels, and gradually shifted to offering movie channels from the Showtime family of networks. Now customers have been notified that their service will continue free of charge until shutdown.

AirBox packages announced

The over-the-air subscription service AirBox, broadcasting over subchannels of Ion stations across the nation, has turned on its website with details of its two packages.

Paquete Latino, for $10 a month, is the basic service level with five channels: TeleFórmula, Cine Méxicano, Pasiones, Sorpresa and GolTV.

Starz can be added for an additional $10 monthly.

The AirBox receivers retail for $99. The website lists a number of locations around Houston where the boxes will be available.

Here is a scan of the Airbox flyer.

AirBox channels now transmitted over Ion stations

This article is now long out-of-date and is kept here for historical reference. Airbox now broadcasts English-language movie channels (Showtime, Stars, Epix). Visit Airbox for more details and pricing.

Edit: Airbox has announced its packages and pricing.

The other day, Aeroducks posted that they had seen a list of a number of odd subchannels on KPXB channel 49:

I see on Titan TV Guide new stations listed……….Apparantly ION related……..Listed as 49.100 thru 49.501………….Rescanned but still not there………..

Interestingly 49.400 is Starz, as in movies………..

Trip Ericson has the answer to what is going on: a new subscription service called AirBox is transmitting several scrambled and unscrambled streams on subchannels of Ion stations nationwide. These streams are in MPEG4 format, so your current set won’t be able to decode them, even if your set can lock onto the subchannel.

The channels included are:
100 – Air Box 100
200 – TeleFormula
201 – CineMexicano
202 – LTNvela
203 – VideoRola
204 – Sorpresa
300 – Gol TV
400 – Starz
500 – qubo2, an unencrypted simulcast of qubo
501 – Life2, an unencrypted simulcast of IonLife

A domain for Airbox has been set up but is still showing a GoDaddy placeholder. Stay tuned…