[mole42uk]

The most serious mistakes I've made in recent years have been when using an autoranging DMM and failing to read the decimal point position when measuring around transistors. It's virtually impossible to make that mistake when using an analogue scale. However, I do have one of those cheap ebay transistor testers that works very well and gives me a digital readout of Hfe, pinout and polarity. At least it tells me if the transistor works under test conditions or not!

I think that using a 'scope to check frequency measurements is good because it encourages me to think about what I'm doing. Check the timebase setting, measure the length of the wave on the screen, then calculate the frequency, or do a quick bit of mental arithmatic to see if it's in the expected range (or as the Americans would say, in the ballpark).