"Phil Allison" wrote in message ...

The tester that Gareth has operates at very low currents and
voltages - a couple of mA at most.
Some power BJTs lose all current gain at that level, showing
Hfes of maybe 1 or 2.
Very likely, this is fooling his meter into giving wrong info
about C and E terminals -- since the reading is like that when
C and E are reversed.

If that's true... Is there sufficient sample-sample variation for this to
occur?