Mmmmm... I'm really surprised with such a fantastic help your're giving to me but
my English is poor and I find it difficult to understand your words:
"Unfortunately, everything after the first amp stage seems odd. I'll bet you have a better output at the 'C' of the first transistor than you do at the flip-flop input."
Odd? Does it mean "unusefull"? What is a 'C' of a transistor? The output (in this case, the collector)?
I know the circuit you propose. I didn't make it because, once ago, I made a simulation with Orcad and it seemed it wouldn't work (lol) But, please, tell me, how do you know it'll work? Like with English, I'm not the "Master of Electronics"
so I can't really imagine why you know it'll work. One detail I would like to comment is that the output of the circuit will arrive into a PIC microcontroler which will afterwards control the relay. So I don't need anything afterwards the flip-flop.
Another question, how do you know, just having a look at the schematic, that transistors 2, 3 and 4 are unuseful?
Thank you very much to all of you