Twenty years ago when I was going to my first installation tester I asked for advice from Paul the then Head of Electrical Department at Kidderminster College, analogue testers were still readily available as sets of testers, but I bought a state of the art Robin KTS160 digital multifunction tester.

Paul said to me that older electricians found it hard to interpret the test results from digital meters, because they were used to measuring with analogue meters. The older electricians would turn the analogue meter on, zero the needle as required, then press the button, the needle would ping up and wobble about a bit, they would look at it and go “Yeah, that’s okay” and that was it done. But with a digital meter they have a snap shot in time with a test result to one or two decimal places, an “accuracy” they have never achieved before, leading them to reach for a book to check the results and to mither about their inability to actually get exactly the same earth loop test results twice if they then repeated that test.

That is a comment that has stuck in my head for over twenty four years, another comment that sticks in my head is that having purchased more testers than I now need, I have spoken to both the technical department of a tester manufacturer and their team on the trade show stands I have been advised to keep them all, because they all measure in different ways and some days one will work better than the others, not the answer you want, but true.

Twenty years ago when I was going to my first installation tester I asked for advice from Paul the then Head of Electrical Department at Kidderminster College, analogue testers were still readily available as sets of testers, but I bought a state of the art Robin KTS160 digital multifunction tester.

Paul said to me that older electricians found it hard to interpret the test results from digital meters, because they were used to measuring with analogue meters. The older electricians would turn the analogue meter on, zero the needle as required, then press the button, the needle would ping up and wobble about a bit, they would look at it and go “Yeah, that’s okay” and that was it done. But with a digital meter they have a snap shot in time with a test result to one or two decimal places, an “accuracy” they have never achieved before, leading them to reach for a book to check the results and to mither about their inability to actually get exactly the same earth loop test results twice if they then repeated that test.

That is a comment that has stuck in my head for over twenty four years, another comment that sticks in my head is that having purchased more testers than I now need, I have spoken to both the technical department of a tester manufacturer and their team on the trade show stands I have been advised to keep them all, because they all measure in different ways and some days one will work better than the others, not the answer you want, but true.