Patrick - - that is all very thoughtfully laid out advice... I went through it all (it hadn't occurred to me that even though the duration doesn't change until you get, in the case of my one-frame grabs, past twenty-four of these things), but still no luck. Thanks so much, though... I now know a lot more about this process than I did before.
And Kevin... I'll try three frames next time.
Cheers,
Malcolm

Malcolm, if you set the camera counter to TC instead of Duration, you will see in the display the complete timecode with hours, minutes, seconds and frames, so you would be able to see the advance of every frame (or three, or whatever you set on the Frame recording menu item).

Brilliant, David. I'll check it out. cheers, Malcolm

Check this " Stop- Frame Animation" info out from Sony.

Kevin

You are correct. I had left my display in duration and I wasn't seeing the frame count even though it was working.

Just an update. I have checked and double-checked, following up on suggestions made here, and after reading and re-reading page 59 of the manual... and it my IR remote just doesn't work. I even put a new battery in it.
So unless someone can think of something else I can try, I'm going to give up on it, and (I hope), get a cable remote. Can anyone tell me where I can get such a thing?
Thanks for trying everyone. malcolm