
WILL (
580 AM) is a
public broadcasting
Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...
station owned by the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and
licensed to
Urbana, Illinois, United States. It is operated by
Illinois Public Media, with studios located at Campbell Hall for Public Telecommunication on the university campus.
WILL is
directional, mostly to protect co-channel
WIBW in
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeastern Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2020 cen ...
. It operates at 5,000 watts during the day. Due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial, as well as its transmitter power, directional antenna and central Illinois's flat land (with high
ground conductivity), its daytime footprint is almost as large as that of a full-power FM station. It provides grade B coverage as far north as
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
and as far east as
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
. At sunset it must reduce power to 500 watts and gradually power down to 100 watts, resulting in marginal coverage even in Champaign-Urbana. At 6 a.m., it increases its power to 335 watts and ramps up to full power at sunrise.
Programming
WILL is a
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
(NPR) member and an affiliate of
Public Radio International
Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States.
PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...
(PRI) and
American Public Media (APM). It airs NPR
news and talk, along with
agricultural news information for central Illinois farmers.
History
In mid-1920 the University of Illinois at Urbana was issued an Experimental radio station license with the call sign 9XJ. Although primarily used for technical training and experimental purposes, by 1921 9XJ was also being used to broadcast athletic scores,
[''Education's Own Stations'' (University of Illinois section) by S. E. Frost, 1937, pages 117-123.] and in early 1922 plans were announced to add musical presentations.
["Radio Order Halts Sending of Scores"](_blank)
''Daily Illini'', February 7, 1922, page 8. However, effective December 1, 1921, the Department of Commerce, which regulated radio at this time, adopted regulations requiring that stations making broadcasts intended for the general public obtain a "Limited Commercial" license. This new requirement resulted in 9XJ ending its entertainment broadcasts,
although the station continued to be used for experimental and training purposes.
In early March it was announced that preparations were being made to apply for a Limited Commercial license that authorized broadcasting, in addition to point-to-point communication with other universities. On March 28, 1922 the university was issued a license, with the call letters WRM, for the 360 meter (833 kHz) "entertainment" wavelength and for point-to-point communication on 410 meters (732 kHz). Although the station call sign was randomly assigned, it was sometimes later said to have signified "We Reach Millions". In late 1924, the station moved to 1100 kHz.
WRM was one of many AM stations signed on by universities (mostly
land-grant institutions like University of Illinois) in the early days of radio. Many of these stations struggled financially, since they operated non-commercially. In 1925 WRM received a major financial boast when Boetius H. Sullivan decided to provide extensive financial support in order to establish the station as a memorial to his father, Roger C. Sullivan, who had died five years earlier. The Sullivan donation consisted of an initial $100,000, plus annual contributions of $8,000 for maintenance and operations. This financed the purchase of a 1,000 watt transmitter, plus construction at 400 South Wright Street of a new studio building and "flat-top" antenna structure.
["All-day Programs Begin on Station W-I-L-L Next Week"](_blank)
''Daily Illini'', April 15, 1937, page 1.
On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the
Federal Radio Commission
The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was a government agency that regulated United States radio communication from its creation in 1927 until 1934, when it was succeeded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was established by ...
's
General Order 40, the station's frequency was changed to 890 kHz, on a timeshare basis with
KUSD in
Vermillion, South Dakota and
KFNF in
Shenandoah, Iowa. At this time WRM's call sign was also changed to the current WILL. Under an agreement with its two timeshare partners, WILL was assigned the timeslots of 5 to 6 p.m. and 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. daily.
Station WILL to Broadcast Daily Program"
''Daily Illini'', November 21, 1928, page 1.
In 1937 WILL moved to 580 kHz, initially with 1,000 watts, using a two tower directional array constructed at South First Street. Because it no longer had to timeshare, this new assignment allowed an increase in hours of operation. However, the station was now generally restricted to operation only during daytime hours, although it was also occasionally authorized to operate at night, with power reduced to 250 watts, in order to broadcast Illini basketball games and the Illinois High School Boys Basketball Championship.[History Cards for WILL](_blank)
fcc.gov. Retrieved July 30, 2019. In December 1938, WILL's power was increased to 5,000 watts. In late 1942 the university began operating an FM station, originally WIUC (now WILL-FM
WILL-FM ( 90.9 MHz) is a public, listener-supported radio station owned by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and licensed to Urbana, Illinois, United States. It is operated by Illinois Public Media, with studios located at Campbel ...
), which allowed for the addition of regular nighttime programming after WILL was required to sign-off at sunset. The station has since been authorized for nighttime operations, albeit at somewhat reduced power.
From 1942 to 1998, WILL's studios were located at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's Gregory Hall. In 1994, the station began broadcasting 24-hours a day, airing the BBC World Service overnight. Until 2014, it also served as the default NPR member station for Terre Haute, Indiana, which lacked a full-power NPR member station until WISU began carrying NPR programming that year as a satellite of WFYI-FM in Indianapolis.
See also
* Illini Media - university-independent not-for-profit organization that runs radio station WPGU and the '' Daily Illini''
* List of initial AM-band station grants in the United States
List of initial AM-band station grants in the United States reviews the first standard radio broadcasting stations that were authorized in the United States.
This review begins with the introduction of the broadcasting service in the United S ...
References
External links
Illinois Public Media's WILL AM-FM-TV website
A. James Ebel papers
at the University of Maryland Libraries. Ebel was WILL's chief engineer and designed the station's first FM transmitter while he was the executive secretary of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters.
"Division of Broadcasting"
''Alumni News'' (College of Communications: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), 1977-78: Fiftieth Anniversary (special issue), pages 24–29: historical overview of radio and TV broadcasting at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign up to 1977
FCC History Cards for WILL
(covering 1927-1979)
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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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ILL (AM)
Radio stations established in 1922
1922 establishments in Illinois
NPR member stations