Happy birthday 3AW. Eighty years old today. Will bring back a lot of memories for loyal AW listeners and it certainly has for me. The station's unofficial historian, Simon Owens, has dug up a heap of memorabilia and showed me one piece last night.

A full-page ad in The Age  from January 1979 when I first  hit Melbourne. A Sydney carpetbagger. A newspaper journo. Not to be trusted. A radio novice. And with the worst voice of anybody on the wireless.

The ad said: The Making of a Precedent. A campaign later echoed on the sides of trams and on taxi backs. Later followed by a steal from Gone With the Wind. 'Hinch: Frankly, I give a damn'.

The newspaper ad immodestly crowed about the things I'd done at 19 and overseas as a callow 22-year-old. But the line that caught my eye: "Now 35, he's Derryn Hinch on 3AW adding spice to the life of the city." Well, I may have added a little spice to the night life back then.

*Scroll down for an image of the advertisement*

Thirty-five, That was 33 years ago. Nearly half the life of 3AW itself. People call that 'the Golden Age' of radio. But as I have told people around here: There was a Golden Age before us. We are going through another top-rating one now. And there'll be a different Golden Age after we've all gone.

Probably my finest moment on AW was before I even joined it. A decade earlier in 1969 when I broadcast live from Cape Canaveral the Apollo 11 blast-off for the moon.

There were crazy moments in the old LaTrobe street building that I nicknamed Colditz Castle. The armed guard they provided me with when I took on the Painters and Dockers and Putty Nose Nicholls. 

The studio invasion by Norm Gallagher's thugs when I nicknamed the BLF the Bludgers and Layabouts Federation.

The studio invasion by my own station managers when I defied the electronic media blackout before elections. They called it a 48-hour blackout against political news but it was really 66 hours – from midnight on the Wednesday until the polls closed on the Saturday.

I first did it before the state election in May 1979 and the final one was the federal election in 1983 and then Bob Hawke dropped the stupid law.

Got suspended a lot during all that. Got suspended for other things too. Like when I quoted Bob Hawke using the F word. That copped a three-day suspension. I got a young bloke called Neil Mitchell to fill in for me. Had to pay him out of my own pocket too.

And, along the way, I went to jail over the pedophile priest, got sentenced to community service over protesting another bad law – now gone – about rape in marriage. And recently did five months under house arrest over sex offenders' suppression orders.

Through all that, spanning more than three decades and different owners, 3AW has stood by me. Management has never told me what to say. And more importantly, never told me what not to say.

One complaint about 3AW is that you walk into the foyer and it is filled with photos of men. Middle-aged, even old men. You know why? We may be old but we are also very good at what we do.

A bit like this radio station. Happy Birthday, old friend.

3AW LISTENERS: On this 80th birthday for 3AW it has had me thinking about the generosity of you the 3AW listeners. We are always asking for help for somebody or some cause and you are always responding.

The most famous example was born from tragedy. The Ash Wednesday fires in 1983. You opened your hearts and wallets and by the end of it we had more than $11 million. Even other radio stations, like the old 3DB, told their listeners to donate to us.

I remember saying it was the rudest fund raiser in history. I kept telling you: Bring money. Now. To the foyer of AW in LaTrobe street. A policeman on holidays heard me say that and spent five days of his leave sitting in the foyer as unofficial money guard.

That generosity was repeated with money and goods on Black Saturday. Once I asked you for rice for East Timor. And the foyer was filled with bags of rice. We collected ten tonnes of it which I took to Dili.

During the famine in Ethiopia I ran the STIC appeal. So this is Christmas. Told you tio give your kids one less present that year and give me the money instead. In ten days you gave me $400,000 and I personally chartered a plane. And took cooking oil and blankets and protein biscuits to those desperate starving people.

You are always there. And you trust us with the funds and the goods. On this program recently I asked for money to pay for a barrister and other legal costs for as foster Mum fighting a bloody-minded DHS for the return of her three kids.

You gave me $5,600 into a trust fund. That money will be forwarded. So on our birthday. Simply, thanks.

PLAY: Derryn Hinch and Bruce Mansfield look back

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3AW Radio turns 80 years old

3AW Radio is celebrating its 80th year today. We began transmission on 22 February 1932 as Melbourne's fifth commercial radio station. What is your first memory of 3AW? Some fun facts and old ads for the station are on this page.