WILL (AM)

WILL

Urbana, Illinois
Broadcast area	Champaign-Urbana
Frequency	580 kHz
Branding	WILL AM 580
Programming
Format	News/talk
Affiliations	NPR
Ownership
Owner	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois)
Sister stations	WILL-FM, WILL-TV
History
First air date	March 27, 1922[1] (experimental under calls 9XJ 1920-1922)
Former call signs	WRM (1922–1928)[2]
Former frequencies	833 kHz (1922–1924) 1100 kHz (1924–1928) 890 kHz (1928–1937)
Call sign meaning	Illinois
Technical information[3]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	68941
Class	D
Power	5,000 watts (daytime) 335 watts (pre-sunrise)[4] 100 watts (night)
Repeater(s)	90.9 WILL-HD3 (Urbana)
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Webcast	will.illinois.edu/am/willplayer/

WILL (580 AM) is a public broadcasting 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. 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 and as far east as Indianapolis. 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.^[4]