The first time that a group of radio amateurs got together to rag-chew about Hellschreibers was in 1977 in the Netherlands. This has turned into an annual event with regular attendance from Holland, Germany, France, Belgium, and Sweden. The Hell Meeting now takes place every year, sometime during September-November. It is a great way to get together in a social setting, with people who are owner/operator of Hellschreibers, who foster radio history and in particular Hellschreiber history (and future)!

The update status of all pages of this website is now listed here.

2011 Hell Meeting   The 34th annual Hell meeting took take place on October 29, at the 2009 venue: the exhibit of the Foundation for German communication and related technologies near Amsterdam. Once again, kindly hosted by Arthur (PAØAOB) and XYL Karin. Arthur presented some new acquisitions of the exhibit, demonstrated the FuSE62D "Würzburg" radar in operation and explained some of its intricacies, and, of course, fired up the impressive 1.2 kW Lorenz transmitter (a 3D photo of the "final" tubes is on this page). As always, a very enjoyable afternoon, complemented with a nice group-dinner at  the local Italian.

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The 2011 attendees, posing in front of the FuG202 "Lichtenstein" airborne radar. Left to right: Alie (PD2ALW), Cor (PA0VYL), Bastiaan (PA3FFZ), Winfried (ON7BW), our host Arthur (PA0AOB), Marc (PE1RRT), Tourin (XYL of Windfried), Stella & Koos (PA0KDF), Remmelt-Jan (PA0RJW), Paul (PE1BXL), Meindert (PA3BVN), Arnold (PE1ARD),  Karin (XYL of  Arthur),  Rommert  (PE1DCF), Frank  (F/N4SPP)

2010 Hell Meeting The 33^nd annual Hell meeting took place on October 9, at the Jan Corver Amateur Radio Museum in Budel (near Eindhoven, The Netherlands). Nearly twenty attendees, from Holland, Belgium, and France enjoyed the hospitality of our hosts, Cor (PAØVYL) and XYL Corry. The museum had a brand new exhibit on sixty years of cartoons by Hans Evers (PA0CX). Hans' wonderfully amusing and insightful cartoons have adorned (and continue to adorn) the cover pages of well-known amateur radio magazines such as Ham Radio and Electron, and articles therein. Arie (PA1AQB) demonstrated his homebuilt multi-mode Hell printing system. It consists of a paper transport module, a printer module, a paper supply module, and a small circuit card rack for the control and interface electronics. He has a made  a printer module for Feld-Hell that is based on a needle printer head with a ribbon cassette. He has now expanded this with a second printer module for start-stop Hell-80. Probably a "world's first"! It will be described in Electron; I have posted some photos on the "Homebuilt Hell-printers" page.

Almost all of the 2010 attendees: (left to right) Arie  (PE1AQB), Arnold (PE1ARD), Remmelt-Jan (PA0RJW), Stella & Koos (PA0KDF), Marten (ON4MAR), Piet (PA0RSD), Jan (ON4FVQ; frmr. PA3FVQ), Hans (PA0CX), Cor (PA0VYL) & Corry, Ankie & Henk (PA3BQS). Front row (left to right):  Frank  (F/N4SPP), Gerard (PA3BCB), Marc (PE1RRT), Paul (PE1BXL). Two Feld–Hellschreiber machines in the foreground. Not shown: Klaas (PA0KLS).

2009 Hell Meeting. The 32^nd annual Hell meeting took place on 14 November, at the wonderful exhibit of  the Foundation for German communication and related technologies near Amsterdam, kindly hosted by Arthur (PAØAOB) and XYL Karin. With just under 30 Hellers and XYLs from France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, this may have been the best-attended Hell Meeting ever!

The 2009 attendees (not all in the photo): Arthur (PA0AOB) & Karin (our hosts), Alie (PD2ALW), Arnold (PE1ARD), Arie (PE1AQB), Remmelt-Jan (PA0RJW), Bastiaan (PA3FFZ) & Marijke, Louis (F5LG) & XYL, Frank  (F/N4SPP), Henk  (PA3BQS) & XYL, Cor (PA0VYL) & Corry, Marien (PA0MVW), Klaas (PA0KLS), Philippe  (F2TV), Heinz  (DC4GL), Marc (PE1RRT), Paul (PE1BXL), Gerard (PA3BCB), Koos (PA3FFZ) & Stella, Paul  (PA0OCD), Winfried (ON7BW) & XYL, Don ? (PA?).

2008 Hell Meeting. I finally (!) decided to start attending these meetings and went to the 2008 Hell Meeting. It took place on 27 September at the Jan Corver Amateur Radio Museum of Cor (PAØVYL) in Budel (near Eindhoven, The Netherlands). The museum had a special exhibit on "Secret messages", with spy radios and many crypto machines (including several original Enigma machines and a "Geheimschreiber"), and a WWII German jamming transmitter. The get-together was generously hosted by Cor and his XYL Corry, and it was really great to finally meet a large part of the hard-core of 30-35 years of world-wide amateur radio Hell activity. Arie, PE1AQB, presented his experimentations with start-stop Hell 80. Followed with a very pleasant group dinner at a local restaurant.

1987 Hell Meeting

The "Hell Gang" at the 10th Annual Hell Meeting in December of 1987, at the home of Wim, PE1FIB (SK).
(from left to right, standing: Koos (PAØKDF), Jan (ON4ASZ), Dick (PAØSE), Hans (PAØCX/DJØSA), Cas (PAØCSC), Aard (PE1MBP, now PA3FNC) and Helmut (DL1OY); front, left to right:  Cor (PAØVYL), Klaas (PAØKLS), Wim, (PE1FIB), Arthur (PAØAOB) and Gerard (PA3BCB). Frans (PA3CDN) took the photo. Louis (PA3DSA) also attended the Meeting.
Photo courtesy Gerard (PA3BCB), published in Electron, February 1988
 

1980 Hell Meeting

The "Hell Gang" gathered around a Hellschreiber at the 1980 Annual Hell Meeting, at the home of Arthur, PAØAOB.
(from left to right: Helmut (DL1OY, SK 2009), Arthur (PAØAOB), Cas (PAØCSC), Hans (PAØCX/DJØSA),
Klaas (PAØKLS), Cor (PAØVYL), Dick (PAØSE), Brian (F5VQ, now NI6Q), and Hans (DL1GP ( Luftwaffe radio technician in WWII, SK 1998), credited with the 1^st amateur Hell contact on HF in 1958, with DM3KG)
Photo courtesy Dick (PAØSE), published in Electron, March 1981

Best wishes to Dr. Hell for his 80th birthday (1981), from the international amateur radio Hell gang. Most of the signatories are in the above photos of the Annual Hell Meeting.
(source: Association of Friends and Sponsors of the “ Dr. Rudolf Hell Technical Collection” in Kiel, Germany)

©2005-2011 F. Dörenberg N4SPP

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