Well, initial testing was more difficult than expected - took about five hours just to get a couple of basic circuits working.  Made a number of incorrect assumptions / mistakes including:

• Assuming it might be differences between components (germanium vs. Silcon, transformer winding ratio, meter current)
• Blaming the jumper wires (a bit old and janky)
• Rushing too much when making the circuits

Finally found out my resistor board PCB traces had not been routed 100%.  Yikes!  After re-soldering the board a couple of the projects are finally working.  Next step is to get a number of them fully tested and documented...

Project # 1 test - tone generator :-)