Hacker RP18 Sovereign.

[Ian E G7OLT]

I always advise against cutting the screen, because when the whiskers catch up with another electrode, you have a dead transistor (and perhaps not enough of a screen lead left to attach to the charged capacitor!). Seen that plenty of times :-)

Mark

You don't need the screen lead to 'blow' the whiskers as it's connected internally to the metal body. I solder BCE together then apply volts between the three of them and the case. If the screen lead is broken off flush with the base, you can always solder another to metal body and use that if you want to keep ' automatic whisker detection' intact.