I've been remembering how the HP 250B works, and how it is used to measure current gain beta, and hfe in transistors. I also misquoted the specs - it goes from 500kHz to 250MHz.
Transistor measurements using this are in issues of Boonton Radio's "The Notebook"
http://www.hparchive.com/Boonton.htm
The relevant issues are 6, 19, 20, 26 and 27.