For an affordable electronic predator call (assuming they are legal for use in Illinois), the FoxPro Wildfire is the best going. It is LITERALLY the only budget friendly ($200 or less) caller on the market that I would recommend. No other $200 or less e-caller is worth owning, in my experience. A lot of new guys go this route to save themselves a learning curve, but honestly, you have to know how to call before you know how to run an Electronic Call properly too.

Hand calling is a more rewarding pursuit, and much less expensive. Grab a $20 4-drop lanyard, a Primos Randy Anderson Double Cottontail distress call, a Primos Lil Dog, a Verminators Syco Tweety, and a Buck Gardner Ultimate Coaxer. These 4 calls will be a killer combo once you get used to playing them. Add in a Dan Thompson Red Desert Howler to play deeper male coyote vocals for locate calling and challenge barking. With those 5 calls, you can make dozens of different call sounds, and in my experience, a hunter with these 5 calls can call any coyote anywhere in the country.

Hand calls are an addiction of mine, I'm creeping up on 200 of them now. There are TONS of them out there, but those 5 will produce a lot of sounds for you, and won't break the bank. Out of the 5 'classes' of calls these represent, these are the cream of the crop that I have found over the last almost 25yrs of calling coyotes.

That said, I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you look into custom made coyote calls. They aren't necessarily much more expensive than the store-bought factory calls, but ARE higher quality, easier to blow, produce a better sound, and are more versatile. If you are interested, I can point you in the right direction for some custom makers that produce the finest fur-slaying tools ever.