Although WHA's tower is relatively short by modern broadcasting standards, its transmitter power and Wisconsin's flat land (with near-perfect ground conductivity) gives it a daytime coverage area comparable to that of a full-power FM station.

It decently covers much of south-central Wisconsin during the day, providing at least secondary coverage as far south at Rockford, Illinois and as far east as the Milwaukee suburbs.

The station must significantly reduce its power at night in order to protect Class A (clear-channel) CBW in Winnipeg at neighboring 990 kHz from interference.

During the winter, early spring, late summer, and fall, it is allowed to ramp up to 434 watts pre-sunrise before beginning full-power operation at sunrise.

[4] In early 2013, FM sister station WERN, flagship of WPR's News and Classical Network, added a WHA simulcast on its third HD subcarrier.

That translator had previously been part of the license of WHHI in Highland in Iowa County, and provides coverage to the western Madison region.

While the translator's power was reduced from 250 to 170 watts, its higher antenna position on the tower allows it to cover all of Dane County.

[7] However, this will substantially improve coverage of NPR news programming in Madison, since WERN penetrates further into south-central Wisconsin than the two translators.

Randall Davidson, while researching the history of WHA for his 2007 book, 9XM Talking, found that "a breathtaking amount of material has been preserved from the station's early decades."

In 1914, Electrical Engineering department professor Edward Bennett constructed a spark gap transmitter, which was only capable of transmitting the dots-and-dashes of Morse code.

Although 9XM had been silenced, in May, at the recommendation of A. Hoyt Taylor, district communication superintendent at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois, the university was permitted to reactivate radio operations, now under the supervision of the U.S. Navy.

After the war, it was revealed that university staff had tested radio communication with submarines, in addition to working with the Army Signal Corps to develop radiotelephones for aviation use.

[15] Professor Terry continued work on developing vacuum-tube transmitters, and in March 1919 announced that audio transmissions had been successfully made from Madison to the Great Lakes station, using "a vacuum power tube which is said to be better than any commercial bulb".

In January 1920, reports from both the Weather Bureau's Eric R. Miller[19] and the university's physics department[20] stated that the transmissions would soon restart, this time by radiotelephone.

[26] Professor Terry filed an application for the new license, and on January 13, 1922, the university was issued its first broadcasting station authorization, with the randomly assigned call letters of WHA.

[28] Wisconsin Public Radio commemorates 9XM in its fund-raising efforts, recognizing network donors who give more than $1,200 annually as members of the "9XM Leadership Circle".

The station suspended operations during the university's 1922 summer break, then, because of technical difficulties, was unable to restart regular broadcasting until January 8, 1923.

After again suspending operations for the 1924 summer break, the station was formally deleted by the government on September 8, although it was relicensed, again with the call letters WHA, on October 14.

Although the Great Depression caused many college radio stations to go silent because of financial pressures, in 1930 the state of Wisconsin began providing both WHA and WLBL in Stevens Point with funding to further their educational offerings.

In the summer of 1932, WHA relocated its transmitter a couple of miles (3 kilometers) south to its current site at Silver Spring Farm.

[33] On March 29, 1941, as part of the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, WHA, along with the other stations on 940, moved to its current dial position of 970 kHz.

WHA made several unsuccessful attempts over the years to be assigned to a clear-channel frequency, or at least to a better dial location that would have enabled it to remain on the air at night.

A plaque installed in 1958 on the university's Madison campus credits "9XM-WHA" as "The Oldest Station in the Nation", stating that it began "broadcasting on a regular schedule in 1919".