Rudolf Hell – Inventor of the Hellschreiber

Rudolf Hell (b. December 19, 1901, d. March 11, 2002) he is credited with inventing an apparatus called the Hellschreiber, which is acknowledged as a precursor to today’s fax machine.

The Hellschreiber is still in use today by HAM radio operators around the world. The Feld Hell Club still holds monthly contests for ham operators using the hellschreiber method of communication.

Further Resources:

• Rudolf Hell Biography – The History of Computing Project
  Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor Recipients List

More Biographies on Fax Inventors:

• Alexander Bain – Experimental Fax Machine between 1843 and 1846
• Arthur Korn – Developed Fax Machine for Transmitting Photographs
• Edouard Belin – Inventor of the Bélinographe
• Frederick Bakewell – Improved Bain’s Facsimile Machine
• Giovanni Caselli – Inventor of the Pantelegraph. Sent images 800km across telegraph wires 9 years before Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone Patent
• Herbert E. Ives – Sent first color fax
• Richard H. Ranger – Invented first Transatlantic Radio Fax
• Rudolf Hell – Invented the Hellschreiber
• Shelford Bidwell – Research in the field of “Telephotography”