WHA (AM)

WHA (970 kHz) is a non-commercial AM radio station licensed to Madison, Wisconsin. It is owned by the University of Wisconsin and serves as the flagship of Wisconsin Public Radio's talk-based "Ideas Network." The call letters are also used for WHA-TV channel 21 (20 digital), the flagship of the Wisconsin Public Television network.

A plaque at the University of Wisconsin–Madison calls it the "oldest station in the nation." Though this claim was refuted by 1920s WHA-AM manager Earle M. Terry who considered KDKA in Pittsburgh to be the oldest.

History

Experiments with spark gap transmitters stretch back to 1900. Professor Edward Bennett started using the call sign 9XM in 1914. A year later, the call sign was transferred to the University of Wisconsin and used for many experiments in the Physics department. Professor Earle M. Terry managed many of these tests, and he eventually decided that the station should start making regular weather broadcasts. From December 4, 1916 onward, the station transmitted regular reports in Morse code.