Short the gate to the source. Then measure the resistance between the source and drain in series with a 1kOhm resistor using a basic multimeter.
You should read somewhat more than 1kOhm.
Reads ~2.05k with a 1k resistor (which itself read ~985ohm). With a 10k reads: 10.8k either polarity.
If it's a JFET it would act very much the same with pin 3 connected to pin 1 (source and drain are essentially interchangeable) . A NPN just block the current in this case.
With only 0.4 mA DS current the diode test might consider drain to source as high impedance, just because it can't drive the usual 1 mA test current. This might have cause the confusion.
Anyway it would be good to have an additional current limiting resistor (e.g. 1 K) in this test.
To be very sure, just build a simple circuit, that should work different with a JFET. A simple such test would be drain to +9V and gate and source via 10 K each towards ground. The voltages over the 10 K resistors should tell the difference.
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Just did, and bearing in mind that I'm going under the assumption these are real J201's, so the pinout should be : drain, source, gate. Pins 2 and 3 each have a resistor to 0V, pin 1 to +9V.
Source 10k resistor: 400mV, Gate 10k resistor, ~0V. Just for kicks I measured the current going through a 10k from +9V to pin 3 (gate, or base if its NPN) and it was 0.3uA.
I'm confused now. It sure doesn't look like a bipolar, but that 400mV is 40uA from drain to source with the gate grounded. To top it off, I did basic measurements with a multimeter:
ohms (infinite = >10M):
positive negative resistance
1 2 90k climbing from 60k
1 3 infinite
2 1 90k climbing from 60k
2 3 infinite
3 1 infinite
3 2 infinite
diode test (inf = out of range, about 1V on this meter)
positive negative result
1 2 inf
1 3 inf
2 1 inf
2 3 inf
3 1 0.709
3 2 0.704
I also have plenty of 2N5457's and 2N3819's to test, all of which show up as JFETs in the transistor tester. The 2N5457 with the 1k in series with gate/source tied measured ~1.2k.
The same JFET with 10k resistors from gate and source to 0V measured ~1V across the source resistor, and 0V across the gate. It also reads ~0.7V from gate to source or drain with a diode tester.
So.. it seems it probably is a JFET but with different specs to the 2N5457. I expected Vgs of >2V and Idss of mA but its 10x less than this at <100uA.. I know JFET's specs vary wildly but this is ridiculous.
The other thing that made me suspicious is the markings. The face of the TO-92 is rough, like its been sanded, and the markings are way off centre. I've seen this before with fake (as in mislabeled) MOSFETS. It could well be another JFET that has been re-marked, apparently this is quite common and is mentioned in DIY guitar pedal forums.
I'll knock up a half decent test jig at some point so I can characterise every part I have. Thanks for the help lads!
Update: Found out I have a J201 model in LTspice. Just simulated several JFETs, and... they give pretty much the same results as the breadboard. It really does seem the J201 has a very low Idss (~0.3mA) and very low Vgs (about 0.8V).