Damn Sniff, did someone $hit in your raisin bran this morning.
The ability to solder and the need to test a transistor are not mutually exclusive. Hell, they're barely related. As I mentioned in my post, electronics as a hobby have always take a back seat to other interests. See below for an example of a hobby that I've focused on instead. I designed and built the entire thing by hand
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I want this project finished more than anyone here. The easy path would be to have someone else just tell me what's wrong. In case you missed it in the original post, I put this kit together to further my knowledge. Confronting and working through this problem will do more for my advancement than anything else.
You're a native English speaker and have never heard of a Tilde?????? It looks like this ~ and it means "approximately". Glad you had the opportunity to learn something from me, I just wish I could say the same.