Thank you very much, this has been exactly what I was hoping for and I am mulling your comments over.
I am running this from a 12V supply.
The load I am attaching is a tiny amplifier drawing 4.5 mA. The LED does not light up.
The voltage drop across the LED is 1.1V, I assume there is no current going thru the LED.
The voltage drop VR11 across R11 is 0.47V, that would indicate Ie=Ic=10mA.
That seems to contradict the measured current thru the load.
Also, if the LED is not conducting all current thru the two 1K resistors would be the base current only, maybe 2% of Ic or Ie.
With this base current he voltage at the base would have to be much smaller than it really is, I measure 11V.
I guess when I try to analyze this, I got the priorities wrong, the causes and the effects, and then things don't come out properly.
Uwe