Coolum Beach: North American DX Paradise

Coolum Beach is situated near Nambour, and is just over an hours drive north of Brisbane. Back in the mid-70's this site was THE place for North American DX, and to this present day there hasn't been another location found that equals the quality of reception heard from here.

Sadly, tourism has played a big part in the demise of Coolum as a DX paradise. The mid-80's saw the start of high-rise apartments appearing, and the old DX site that was "home" to many Aussie medium-wave DXers in the 70's and 80's is now the site of the Coolum High School.

Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to experience the superb listening conditions that Chris Martin, Sam Dellit, Ray Crawford and many others saw back in the mid-70's. I have heard tape recordings of 250 watt domestic stations in the USA with such clarity and strength that you would think they were 50-kilowatters!

This site was also a fabulous place for reception of stations scattered throughout the Pacific. Stations like Radio Sunshine on Niue, Radio Lord Howe Island, and WSZO in the Marshall Islands were heard regularly. Not to mention the Hawaiians, and the Fijian stations, which absolutely boomed in.

With plenty of untouched bushland to string out antennas, you had the room to comfortably put out 800 metres plus to anywhere in the USA (around 50 degrees magnetic), including Alaska (around 10 degrees). In just 2 or 3 expeditions to Coolum over a 6 year period, I heard around 10 or more Alaskans (many at good strength), which is something that I have never been able to repeat from any other DXpedition in Australia.

The guys from the Australian Radio DX Club have in the past couple of years been trying out a site at Rainbow Beach, about a 120 kilometre drive north of Coolum, but with limited success.

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