WIUS

Infobox Radio Station


name = WIUS
airdate = 1981
frequency = 88.3 (MHz)
area = Illinois
format = Rock
owner = Western Illinois University
erp = 120 W
branding = "The Dog"
slogan = ""
class = A
website = [http://www.wiu.edu/thedog/ "The Dog"]

WIUS (88.3 FM) is a 120 watt student operated radio station in Macomb, Illinois, in west-central Illinois. The station is run by Western Illinois University and is authorized by the Federal Communications Commission. The call letters "WIUS" (not-FCC authorized or granted) were used by student-run carrier current AM radio station at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This station has since become a low power FM station WIUX at Indiana University.

History

* 1956 - WWKS (named for William Kimbrough Shake, who installed the equipment), signs on at 3,000 watts. The station broadcasts educational programming aimed primarily at K-12 audiences from Tillman Hall (the "new science building") at Western Illinois University.

* 1962 - WWKS moves to "the new library" - Memorial Hall, which will remain its home for the next 40 years. The station's sole full-time employee throughout the decade is Elmer "Tug" Haddock, who acts as General Manager and provides oversight of volunteer student announcers. The station’s transmitter is installed in Sallee Hall and convert|250|ft|m|sing=on tower was erected between Memorial and Sallee Halls.

* 1962 to 1992 - For the next thirty years, WWKS / WIUM-FM divides its broadcast schedule between instructional, educational, public affairs and student programming.

* 1970 - WWKS becomes WIUM. WIUM is best known, in the 1970s, for its program "Wax Museum", which was broadcast each Sunday night from 9:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.. This show featured popular music prior to 1971.

]
* 1970 to 1982 - WHEN, a non-profit carrier current student station on 560 kHz AM, operates from the basement of Henninger Hall. The programming was strictly rock music (e.g. progressive, alternative, album-oriented). The station was occasionally funded through Residence Hall and Student Activities fees during this period. While largely a carrier-current station heard in the residence halls, the station was an early cable radio station in some WIU campus buildings (late 1970s). Gary Wills served as general manager in 1977.

* 1981 - WIUM-FM relocates its transmitter to the new convert|500|ft|m|sing=on tower at Western Illinois University's Horn Campus, south of Macomb. This tower was constructed for a PBS television station (WIUM-TV) to serve west-central Illinois, now known as WMEC. This same year, WIU submitted a construction permit to FCC for a full-time student-operated FM broadcast radio station, WIUS. The original convert|250|ft|m|sing=on tower for WIUM adjacent to Sallee Hall was dismantled in the following years.

* 1982 - WIUM qualifies for Corporation for Public Broadcasting support and becomes a member station of National Public Radio (NPR).

* 1982 - WIUS-FM is born as a second FM broadcast station and signs on at 88.3 FM, coinciding with the change of WIUM programming to NPR. The station's first Program Director was Mark S. Allen. (WIU '86). Mark suggested the original theme for the station when it went "on-air" in 1982 "The Station With Everything For Everybody". Later the station's theme was changed to "The Dog", in reference to Rocky, the mascot for the WIU Leathernecks.

* Fall 2006 - WIUS starts live streaming audio via the Internet

* 2006 - WIUS continues to be operated and programmed by WIU students, now in the Department of Broadcasting at Sallee Hall.

* September 2006 - WIUS celebrates its 25th anniversary "on-the-air" at WIU.

* August 2007 - WIUS launches a brand new automation system, vastly improving the station's on air sound, and streamlining the movement to an all-digital media radio station.

External links

*FMQ|WIUS
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20050215071028/http://www.wiu.edu/broadcasting/Tour/WIUS.html WIUS-FM Web Tour]