By the way, talking about overload. The issue of crystals breaking has been
mentioned a few times, but how do I measure what the crystal "sees" for
current and what is tooo much???


It's not easy to measure crystal current, since it's RF current at the crystals
frequency of oscillation. Most AC milliameters will stop working at about
10Khz, and the lead length and impedance will probably throw off your
oscillator.

One "trick" we used in the old days, which also sometimes saved the crystal
from destruction, was to put a low current pilot lamp in series with the
crystal. Seems to me it was a #49, but you'd best look it up. My recollection
was that this was a 60ma bulb. In normal operation it should not glow visibly.

Doug Moore KB9TMY