It is well known that the discoverer of radio waves, Heinrich Hertz, was the first man to apply Maxwell's electrodynamic theory to a problem in radio wave propagation. In this paper, we scrutinize his near-field lines of force using computers and his theory. In one of his four figures, a feature was found which was not to be obtained by computation. This feature, a self-intersecting line of force, more or less a figure of eight, appears strange to the eye. The clarity of the original work by H Hertz on electromagnetic waves should be of great value in both physics and engineering courses. This holds in particular for his Q function, almost completely forgotten today. (Contains 4 figures.)