/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Just bought all 10 shift registers, plus two hex inverting buffers. This frequency divider might be my first project that requires two breadboards. I'd be trying out the crystal now if the shop hadn't kicked me out for staying past closing time. Surplustronics NZ sure has good prices, but their component shelves are just in "general alphanumeric order", so it took 3/4 of an hour to find what I was looking for. They also sell slide potentiometers.

I happened to have a trimmer cap on me, so I picked this circuit. Also because it's the only one that actually specifies component values and works for a 32.768kHz crystal, so it had better be a good one. Is a BC548 a decent replacement NPN for the pictured one? It has much higher hFE at low current, does this matter?