I've listened to the work of reporter Steven Portnoy for years and you've probably heard the ABC News Radio veteran on some 680 News stories over the years. 

I had no idea he was a passionate advocate for saving radio history. And now he's being honoured for it. According to Portnoy, he got the bug early in his career when he was working at WSYR in Syracuse and found some old and apparently discarded reel-to-reel tapes stuck away in a cabinet and was stunned at the history they had on them - a history that was almost lost forever. 

And he gives credit to others for inspiring his passion - a list that doesn't but could include our own Dale Patterson, who runs the great Rock Radio Scrapbook.

Portnoy cites two other names some here may know. 

"I have to give credit to people like, I don’t know if you know these names, but people like Allan Sniffen and Jonathan Wolfert.

 Allan runs MusicRadio77.com, which is a tribute page to WABC Radio and its heyday in the 1960s and ’70s. Jonathan Wolfert is the founder of a company called JAM Creative Productions in Dallas, which, through the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and into today, is a leading producer of jingles for the radio industry. Each of them had a substantial influence on me early in my development as a broadcaster.

I remember when I was in college, listening to some of the airchecks they shared with the public. I didn’t grow up listening to fast-paced, personality-driven Top 40 music radio in the 1960s, but I feel like I did because Allan and Jonathan and others put it online decades later for people like me to listen to."

I only wish Canada had an official museum dedicated completely to preserving this stuff. Because when it's gone, it's gone forever. And that would be a tragedy.

Steven Portnoy on the Icons and Archives of Radio