November 24 Illinois History Minute

It’s November 25th, and the University of Illinois’ first FM radio station, WIUC,  began regular broadcasts this week in 1942. Newspaper articles at the time described FM radio’s superior, static-free sound, although the signals didn’t travel as far as AM radio. In its early years, WIUC broadcast just once a week, to the few dozen Champaign-Urbana households with FM radios. Those radios became obsolete when the federal government moved the FM radio band to a higher spot on the spectrum. WIUC moved from 42-point-9 to 90-point-9 on the dial, and in the 1950s, changed its call letters to WILL-FM. Today, WILL-FM concentrates on classical music, while WILL-AM focuses on news and talk programming.