Click here to see the original article from HR dec.-79.
Dear HR:The December issue of your magazine arrived this morning and as usual I sat down to skim it - saving the serious stuff for later.
I was surprised at the Hellschreiber article. You see, I have one of these machines, sitting above the rafters of the shack, waiting until someone came up with the other one.
That last remark is deliberate: It relates to the time of WWII when I was working with the Signal Service Section of the Signal Corps in Liege, Belgium. We were located in rear of the 15th Army; they were sending back captured German equipment to our depot, and we had no orders how to process it. We were very busy reworking our own equipment. I was acting as senior officer in charge of salvage and incoming equipment.
Among the items coming in on the rail cars was this type of equipment. I intercepted three of these Hellschreibers and shipped two home complete and one in parts less the case. Luckily, the case size just fit the maximum package size that could be shipped home. I was also depot security officer, and as such knew what could be shipped and what couldn't. Numerous articles were shipped at my personal expense to the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, where I had spent several weeks in 1942.
Thanks to the poor work of the Army mail, and over-emphasis on what could, and could not, be received within a country still at war, only one of the Hellschreibers arrived at my father's home address. The other and the parts were not received, but I did receive some papers telling me that it was illegal to ship this stuff (our orders stated that souvenirs could be shipped only if certain papers were put on the side of the package).
To say I was disgusted and angry is to put it mildly, but having only one Hellschreiber and no spare parts, I simply put it away until I could find use for it. I arrived home in December, 1945, and with a new wife and setting up a home and finding work it was forgotten for many months.
Therefore, there is at least another of these machines in the United States. It will be marked inside with my call W6DKZ. The parts were not identified, as I thought no one would be interested in them. I am still Iooking for the missing machine, and would like to get in contact with anyone who might be saving it, as I intended it for a museum. If it turms up, I'll try out the two between some friends here in Santa Clara Valley.
The Hellschreiber machines are all that the writer says they are, although I did not know they would work well through ORM. They were made to work on wire lines as simplex or duplex. with isolating coils, and since they employ a tone and amplifier, they don't interfere with speech on the lines.