No instructions? For starters, the bulb, located on the tip of the meter, should always be kept in a storage solution when it is not in use. It should never be allowed to dry out, or it will become non-functional. Your meter will have come with a small cap, filled with liquid, that covered the bulb. This can be used to keep the bulb wet, or, you can add a little table salt to some tap water, and immerse the tip of the meter in this solution, using a small glass jar. The meter likely has an on/off switch, & it will normally be in the "off" position when stored. When you want to use the meter to measure pH, it must be calibrated. There are calibration solutions available, but I use tap water and 5% white vinegar to make a crude calibration of our meter, and this seems to work OK for checking soil pH. Our tap water contains dissolved limestone, and it has a known pH of 7.5. The vinegar has a pH around 3. The pH meter will have one or two small screws that are turned to adjust the pH reading, to match the pH of the test solution. Be sure to rinse the bulb off, in cold tap water, as you go back & forth between the two test solutions. When the meter is calibrated to your satisfaction, rinse off the bulb, and then you can test your soil sample, or whatever it is you are looking at. You can use a pH meter to test the pH of any water based liquid, like orange juice, milk, apple cider, or coffee. The solutions should be at room temperature to get accurate results, unless your meter is temperature compensated. Somewhere on your meter there should be a brand name, part number, or manufacturer logo. It would be helpful if you could post this imformation.

Actually, you do have the name. It's 'PH Testr 1 Waterproof '

Go to google.com
and use the search phrase 'instructions PH Testr 1 Waterproof ' but without the quotes.

Here's one pdf
http://www.4oakton.com/SellSheets/.../pH%20A4.pdf

Here is a link that might be useful: possibly for your device

Thanks so much to both of you! Ericwi, This thing came dry, so hopefully it still works. I only paid $12 incl shipping for it. Thanks also for the cheap way to calibrate, and you taking the time to give me instructions. Jean001, the name was staring me in the face (blushing), I appreciate you looking it up for me, thanks for the link, dj

ok, I found I have an Oakton and found directions, but it doesn't tell you how to do soil if this tests water based things? Do you mix the soil with water, or do you just stick it in dry soil? And I'm confused about calibration. I have to have 2 different things like 7.5ph water, and 3% vinegar? You stick it in water wait until it hits 7.5, rinse w/water, then dip in vinegar and wait until it hits 3% ph, repeat?

The way I test our soil pH is to dig up about 1/8 cup of dirt, and mix with enough water to make it soupy. I use distilled water for this mixture. I filter the soup with a paper coffee filter, and the clear filtrate gets tested for pH. The results I am seeing make sense, in that the blueberry shrubs grow well, with deep green leaves, when the soil pH is below 6.5, and they begin to develop yellow leaves when the pH rises above 7. So, for me, the test results agree with how the plant is doing. Since you have no manual with this meter, and you can not externally calibrate the pH setting, I am guessing that you will need to use distilled water, pH = 7, to calibrate this meter. You would clean the tip, with tap water, and then immerse the tip in distilled water, and press the calibrate button. It should read 7, and it should be calibrated at that point in time.

thank you so much you've been very helpful. I'll give that a try.

wow, my soil is 5.4, what can I do to raise it, is ph up ok to use? That must be why my bottom leaves are yellow

pH meters are notoriously inaccurate until they have been calibrated. Since your meter was shipped with a dry bulb, it might need 24 hours immersion in saltwater solution before it can be calibrated successfully. After that period has passed, it can be rinsed off with tap water, and then calibrated with distilled water. It should read 7.0, or something very close to that. When that is accomplished, you might check the pH of your tap water. If you have hard water, and you see lime deposits in the teapot, then the pH of your tap water will be higher than 7. After you have checked the tap water, the next thing to be checked is 5% white vinegar, from the grocery store. The vinegar should measure between 3 and 4, pH. If all of this checks out, you can be confident that the meter is reasonably accurate, and ready to use for soil testing. When you are done testing, the pH bulb should be immersed in saltwater. It will be damaged if it is stored in distilled or de-ionized water.

OP wrote "my soil is 5.4, ...That must be why my bottom leaves are yellow"

Bottom leaves can be yellow for various reasons, among them the plant has gone dry one or more time, or the leaves are just plain old.

A picture would help us.

The standard way to test soil (IIRC) is with equal amounts of soil and water, stir and let sit 30 min. then test.

Distilled water is theoretically at 7, but since it has NO buffering capability (we'll cover what that is later in Chem. 201 :-), it is highly susceptible to absorbing enough stuff from the container and the air to change the pH drastically. So I would stick with the vinegar cal for the low end. Your water provider should be able to tell you the pH of the tap water they deliver. One other way to check the upper end is to use baking soda in water - the bicarbonate buffer pH is 8.3. You don't need much, 1/4 teaspoon in a cup of water, and you can even experiment with adding different amounts and you should see that within a reasonable range it doesn't change the pH. Same with vinegar.

If you can find a package of salt substitute, like "no-salt," this would be even better than table salt for conditioning and storing the tip of your pH meter. Potassium chloride is the best material, in solution, for storage of pH meter bulbs.

Many good points have been made abour meters and calibraton but an extremely important point is missing thus far.

Take a proper sample. For instance, if you have a garden that has uniform soil over a 20' x 20' area, sample that area to the depth of the root system of the crop(s) you have or plan to plant there. A very common range is between 6 - 10" deep. Don't take one sample from the plot and think you are done, take at least 10 if not more, the more the better. If you aren't lucky like me (I have a sampling probe which makes it very quick and easy to take many samples) You should use a shovel or a trowel to do the digging and here is how.

Put the shovel blade in the ground to your desired depth and then gently remove the soil leaving the soil directly behind where the shovel went in an intact wall. Next, take your shovel and shave off about an inch thick slice at the same angle and depth as your first spade full and retain the slice of soil in a clean bucket. repeat this in another 9 or more locations throughout the plot. Mix all of the subsamples in the bucket thoroughly and from that well blended soil, take your sample for analysis.

If you are picky like me you'll dry the soil in an oven at about 140 deg. F until thoroughly dry then weigh out 30 grams of soil into a 100 ml beaker and add 30 mL of D.I. water, mix thoroughly and then let sit for 30 minutes. Next, after calibrating the pH meter, it's test time!

Keep in mind that the time of year and cultural practices (I.E. applying fertilizers, irrigating) can affect pH so go hog wild and use it a lot to see what effect time and your practices have on pH.

Michael