A construction permit for what is now WYCX-CD was granted on January 24, 1996 for operation on UHF channel 49, to serve Manchester; the new station was issued the call sign W49BU. The original owners, Heritage Broadcasting Company of New York, sold the station to Vision 3 Broadcasting on June 19, 1997. Vision 3 modified the permit to add Londonderry as a second city of license on January 8, 1998. The station was designed to be a repeater of WVBG-LP from Albany; however, when channel 49 signed on in March 1998 as an independent station, it was the second of Vision 3's three stations to launch, after W39CE in Easton, New York, which signed on in December 1997. WVBG-LP itself would not go on the air until August 1998. Channel 49 became WVBK-LP on April 24, 1998. On October 5, 1998, WVBK-LP, along with parent station WVBG-LP, became a UPN affiliate; it already carried the UPN Kids block, but the network's primetime programming had previously been seen in the Capital District through secondary affiliations with Fox affiliate WXXA-TV and Pax station WYPX-TV, as well as cable carriage of WSBK-TV from Boston. The lineup of UPN and syndicated programming was supplemented by several sports packages, including Big East football and basketball, the Boston Red Sox, and the Boston Celtics. The UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "WEDG-TV" signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA-TV. WVBK-LP would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station; that June, Vision 3 put its sister stations, WVBG-LP and WVBX-LP, up for sale, and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up by programming from America One and the Resort Sports Network, the predecessor to Outside Television. While WVBG-LP was sold to Wireless Access in 2001 and WVBX-LP was sold to Venture Technologies Group in 2003, Vision 3 kept WVBK-LP, making it a separate station. America One was dropped in 2003, making the station a full RSN affiliate. The station moved to channel 2 in 2004 and upgraded to class A status. On February 28, 2005, Vision 3 purchased the construction permit for W47CS in Windsor from MTC North, who was granted the permit on April 22, 2003. Vision 3 changed its call letters to WVBQ-LP on June 16, 2005, moved the station to Newport and Charlestown, New Hampshire on February 16, 2006, and signed it on that March as a satellite of WVBK-CA. Vision 3 filed to sell WVBK-CA and WVBQ-LP to New Hampshire 1 Network, a company controlled by William H. Binnie, in November 2010; the deal was called off in June 2011. Vision 3 then filed to sell WVBQ-LP to Cross Hill Communications that November; under the terms of the deal, Cross Hill also held an option to acquire WVBK, which was exercised in June 2012. Under Cross Hill, the station increased its local programming, including the addition of a half-hour weeknight newscast. WYCU-LD began broadcasting in digital on channel 26 in December 2012; although this facility was applied for as WVBQ's digital companion channel, Cross Hill ended broadcasts on analog channel 47 on December 20, 2012 and returned the analog WVBQ-LP license to the FCC, which canceled it on January 3, 2013. Channel 26 had changed its call letters from WVBQ-LP to WYCU-LD on December 13, 2012. In May 2013, WVBK-CA converted to digital broadcasts; on October 18, it changed its call letters to WYCX-CD. Following their digital conversions, WYCX-CD and WYCU-LD added subchannels to carry RTV, Tuff TV, and PBJ.
Digital television
Digital channels
The stations' digital signals are multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
WYCX shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, in May 2013, and "flash-cut" its digital signal into operation VHF channel 2.
