Debugging can indeed be discouraging, but please don't give up.? We'll continue to help.
If you limit your current to 250-300mA, it can't burn up the BS170s - it also won't give full power out, but may be a better debug setup than the diodes.
When you say the BS170s let out smoke the moment power was applied, do you mean when you pressed the power-on button, or when you tried to transmit?? (different debugging paths depending on the answer to this)
?
And if you're ready to have someone else work on it, you can mail it to Jeff W1NC and he will fix it for you for the cost of postage and parts, and let you know exactly what was wrong.
?
Stan KC7XE
