City | San Clemente, California |
---|---|
Broadcast area |
San Diego, California Greater Los Angeles Inland Empire, California |
Branding | K-Wave |
Slogan |
The Wave of Living Water (primary) Your Station for Worship and the Word (secondary) |
Frequency | 107.9 (MHz) (also on HD Radio) |
First air date | 1971 |
Format | Christian talk and music |
ERP | 530 watts |
HAAT | 1,156 meters |
Class | B |
Facility ID | 8410 |
Transmitter coordinates | 33°42′40.00″N 117°31′55.00″W / 33.7111111°N 117.5319444°W |
Callsign meaning | K WaVE (station's moniker) |
Owner | Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa |
Sister stations | KGSV, KSDW, KWTH |
Webcast | Listen Live! |
Website | www.kwve.com |
KWVE-FM is a commercial radio station licensed to San Clemente, California, broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area and northern San Diego County on 107.9 FM. KWVE-FM airs Christian programming with an emphasis on Bible teaching and Christian music of the praise and worship genre. The station is owned by Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, with its transmitter atop Santiago Peak and studios in the church-owned Logos Building in Santa Ana, adjacent to the church campus. Most of the teaching programs on the station are locally produced by Calvary Chapel pastors. The praise and worship music, as described on the station's website, is meant to "lead one into the worship of God without attracting too much attention to the music itself." It also has two hours of Christian children's programming on Saturday mornings.
Before Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa purchased the station in 1985, KWVE-FM was a secular commercial music station that received poor ratings, except in the evening drive slot where they played cutting-edge punk and new wave music which pulled high Arbitron ratings. In 1982, KWVE-FM sold the 7 p.m. to midnight timeslot to Calvary Chapel as well as Sundays from 5 a.m. to noon. Their programming generated a lot of interest, and on April 15, 1985, Calvary Chapel bought the station. The church expanded the Christian programming to its current 24-hour format, but kept the KWVE call letters and K-Wave brand. KWVE-FM advertises itself as "The Wave of Living Water", in reference to its wave-themed moniker and to the New Testament phrase "living water", a term for salvation through Jesus Christ.
For most of its existence the station's call letters were simply KWVE, without the FM suffix. That changed in 2009 when Calvary Chapel purchased a defunct Christian AM radio station, KGDP in Oildale, California and renamed it KWVE, simulcasting the FM signal into the Bakersfield area. As a result, the original KWVE was legally renamed KWVE-FM.