On Thursday, August 8, 2019 at 12:55:00 PM UTC-4, TimR wrote:
So this time I put a multimeter to the wires instead of using a voltage tester that just beeps. What I found is the hot (Black) wire from the circuit breaker panel has approximately 12 VAC on it, even when disconnected at both ends.

If I get 120 VAC on my multimeter, I trust it. If I get 12 or 37 or anything else weird, I turn the digital off and go get the Simpson. It's not as convenient but the old analog doesn't seem to get fooled by phantom volts the way the digitals do.

If the analog shows the same reading, then I've got a wiring problem. I've never actually had that happen though.

Some new digital VOMs have dual inputs now, high and lower impedance to
solve that problem. I think someone reported here that there were
adapters, essentially a resistor bridge that you could plug in to older
Flukes, etc too.