It was a big deal when VTVM's went solid state. What was it, FETVM? ^_^
The guys who received electronics training in the military were invariably good at it but one guy I knew was arrogant and nasty toward those of us who had to do it the hard way even though our tax dollars got him his training. Back in the 70's during the CB craze I obtained a bunch of Sencore test gear for working on CB radios and electronics and my favorite was the Secore transistor tester which would test FET's and all types of transistors in and out of circuit. The CB was the iPhone of the 70's and I could sell a piece of junk CB for $100.00. Geez! I repaired thousands of those damn things but the most entertaining radios to service were the taxicab radios. Those big old Motorola and GE trunk mounted hybrids or tube type beasts that the taxi companies picked up used. I showed the drivers how to tap on the vibrator to get it going again until one of them came to the shop with a dead radio in which he had beaten in every aluminum can in the darn chassis trying to get the vibrator power supply to start up. I found a wonderful little 25 watt VHF unit made by Sonar Radio Inc. that I started selling the taxi companies and it was a bit larger than a CB but fit under the dash and didn't weigh 100lbs. Ain't technology wonderful? ^_^
TDD