
No matter how remote your business is ... help is only a Cooee away.
There's NO talkback, NO announcers, NO news... Just great music from the 70's till today (with some radio ads from our Bush Business Members sprinkled in between).
Just by listening and telling your friends about us, you will be helping our bush friends (you can always buy their products as well!)
Fun Fact: Why did we call it Cooee Radio?
Cooee is a uniqely Australia shout out to attract attention and indicate your own location. It is also known as a call of help... Sounds exactly like what we wanted. We want to tell all of Australia (and the world) about our bush business members and (because we have great music and they have great products) they will tell all their friends as well.
According to wikipedia - The word "cooee" originates from the Dharug language of Aboriginal Australians in the Sydney area. It means "come here" and has now become widely used in Australia as a call over distances.
According to Wikipedia:
Cooee! (/ˈkuːiː/) is a shout originated in Australia to attract attention, find missing people, or indicate one's own location. When done correctly—loudly and shrilly—a call of "cooee" can carry over a considerable distance. The distance one's cooee call travels can be a matter of competitive pride. It is also known as a call of help, which can blend in with different natural sounds in the bush.
The word "cooee" originates from the Dharug language of Aboriginal Australians in the Sydney area. It means "come here" and has now become widely used in Australia as a call over distances.
History and usage
The explorer Thomas Mitchell, recording an incident in 1832 where one of his men came unexpectedly upon a native camp, wrote that "his debut [was] outrageously opposed to their ideas of etiquette, which imperatively required that loud cooeys should have announced his approach before he came within a mile of their fires." He further explained in a footnote, that a cooey was "The natives' mode of hailing each other when at a distance in the woods. It is so much more convenient than our own holla, or halloo, that it is universally adopted by the colonists of New South Wales.":Jan 17
One of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries hinges on the use of "cooee". "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" is solved partly because, unlike everyone else, Holmes recognises the call is commonly used among Australians. However, author and missionary to Tasmania, Reverend John West (1809-1873), reported in 1852 that "cooey" was "not unknown in certain neighbourhoods of the metropolis" (London). In 1864, an English slang dictionary reported: "Cooey, the Australian bush-call, now not unfrequently heard in the streets of London". In 1917, the Anglo-Welsh poet Edward Thomas used "coo-ee" as the parting word with his wife Helen, on leaving for the Western Front from which he never returned; a fact commemorated at a 2014 Remembrance service in Glasgow.
The expression "within cooee" has developed within Australian and New Zealand English as slang for "within a manageable distance". It is often used in the negative sense (i.e. "you're not even within cooee", meaning not close to or, a long way off). Another example would be: "They realised they were lost and there was no-one within cooee". It is also use in the abstract (e.g. "How much do you think they spent redoing this place?" "Oh, I don't know, five thousand dollars?" "You're not even within cooee—twenty-five thousand!").
The word cooee has become a name of many organisations, places and even events. Perhaps the most historic of these was the Cooee March during the First World War. It was staged by 35 men from Gilgandra, New South Wales, 766 km (476 mi) northwest of Sydney, as a recruiting drive after enthusiasm for the war waned in 1915 with the first casualty lists. They marched to Sydney calling "Cooee!" to encourage others to come and enlist. A poster read "Coo-ee – Won't you come?". When they reached Sydney on 12 December, the group had grown to 277. To this day, Gilgandra holds a yearly Cooee Festival in October to commemorate the event. Other Cooee Festivals occur across Australia.
Richard White indicates the important means of demonstrating Australian nationality with the call taking on a consciously nationalistic meaning. He also documents its spread through the Empire, to New Zealand and South Africa.
Can any business subscribe?
Click below for the conditions.
To become a member your business MUST be located in a rural area of Australia, which is defined as:
- having a population less than 100,000 people
- be a minimum distance of 50 kilometres from a Capital City of Australia
What Can Be Sold
Any rural business is welcome to join whether it is a web based business or one with a bricks and mortar shopfront.
We welcome businesses selling handmade or commercial products.
It goes without saying but only business members selling legal items will be allowed to join.
We believe that ALL businesses should get the same opportunity for their commercial to be heard. So we have created a subscription model.
Every business pays the same monthly amount (unless you get one of our awesome promo offers) and share in an equal amount of airtime for their 30 second commercial.
In fact, the sooner you join us the more airtime you will get (while the word is getting around).
We also believe that it is important to give back to those in need as much as possible, therefore we will be donating (on you behalf) $5.00 per month from your monthy subscription to the charity you select during the sign up process.
Our charities are:
Little Windmills - The Country Kids Charity
Aussie Helpers - Helping The Heart Of Our Country
Backpack Beds For Homeless