First question I ask is if you can transmit through it turned off. I call this the "barrel connector" test. If you can't transmit and receive through it with the power turned off, that's one kind of problem.
Do you hear the relay go "click" when you key the mike?
An amplifier that won't activate the relay when you transmit has a different problem.
A burned resistor that's connected to ground on one side, and to the transistor's input lead on the other tells you THAT transistor has broken down and shorted inside.
Permanently.
Just because the transistor looks good doesn't mean it works. I have a box of blown-out RF transistors that all look perfectly okay. Makes me wonder how much gold you can recover from a hundred of those. Would probably cost twice what the recovered metal is worth.
If you unsoldered the base and collector leads of each transistor and then connected a transistor tester to each one, you could say if either or both is good.
Short of that, you're just guessing.
Or hoping. Or both.
73