ryan.c.dunlop  Good on you for getting your Grandpa's call sign.  I love hearing these kind of stories because it honors your Grandpa and your memory of him. 

dingleworx  I totally forgot about the car gear I bought as a young man!  YES!  Now a strobe gun is a Go/No Go test.

Mine was a simple multimeter given to me by my grandpa. He was a ham and always pushing me to get into the hobby, or into electronics in any form, so many of my early tools, including this multimeter came from him. I tinkered and measured everything from my AA batteries to my RC cars for better or worse.  I do not have a picture of it and it's long gone. What isn't gone is many years later I am a ham and after my grandpa's passing I got my general class license and was able to get his call sign.

Just used one of my Christmas presents, a 60 cm steel rule, to perfectly hang a large picture (1200 x 800 mm). I surprised myself how well it went. I should have got one of these rulers before. A great instrument. I have also been using some newish electronic scales over the last few months. I have discovered that since the summer I have put on four pounds and that my weight varies by about four pounds over the course of 24 hours, pretty much every day. Without my super newish scales I would never have known this. I'm not sure how my life is better knowing this but I'm sure it must be.

Dubbie

My first Multimeter was Sanwa make analog in 80's when I were at secondary school. I learnt using it from a Valve type Radio and Transistors repair expert in our neighborhood.  That was lost in migrating from that town to another place.

Then I bought a Multimeter in 1992 for the first time, it is a China make DM303TR. It was still working around 3 years ago. Teat leads were broken and bad, I uaed to solder a wire and used it for electronics projects!  At present, I still have it but not in working condition some 2 years ago it's LCD screen gone bad.

Being a mechanical engineer I have to work in my field of studies... but I do assemble useful electronics projects at home as an enthusiast.

After many years of induatrial experience,  I am heading a Maintenance department. At my office I have made a repairing and testing lab with latest expensive Fluke make instruments for HT and LT maintenance as well PCB cards of controllers and CNC machinery.

Still enjoying using  latest technology  instruments along with my team of technicians and engineers.

I wish to have good quality Instruments for my home repairs and IOT projects !

Hi, lots of fun things listed.

I think the first Meter I used was a Radio Shack / Micronta 22-204c. It was 1980 something and I was taking apart my Commodore 64 joystick in order to try and make a better controller setup for the game Need 4 Speed.  I used the meter to figure which wire was which button.  I then separated the up down function and made them into pedals and left and right into  2 thumb buttons.  They were small radio shack momentary buttons mounted into  scrap pieces of plexiglass.  It was then I was learning the difference between analog and digital control.  As I remember it did not work out so well but it was  loads of fun trying.  Would be great to win all the goodies in this giveaway.  My boys would have lots of fun working on projects a I did.  My daughters would too,

I was later repairing all my friends game controllers on sega's, nintendo's, playing with slot cars,

I still have the meter in a drawer somewhere

The first testing tool I ever bought was a simple voltmeter that I used when constructing a living space in the back of a Nissan Pathfinder. I had built a bed and storage space in the trunk and backseat area, and set up a marine battery and inverter that was hooked up to charge from my alternator when I drove. It was my first electrical project and I had help from a friend that was an electrician, but needed that voltmeter when I was setting it up and troubleshooting problems in the future. I slept in that car while moving across the country, and lived in it for two summers while treeplanting. I've since moved into a few houses and just recently brought that old pathfinder to the autowrecker

The first ever tool i used was a soldering iron.Me along with my brother tried to fix some illumination lights with it and blew up our house fuse.I still have the iron but it broke.

My first measurment tool was a digital multimeter from ALDI. Surely a rebadged model from another manufacturer, it has served me well. As an Engineering student, it allowed me to BYO meter to test things loike resistances in my components before leaving the supply room, running tests on practical assessments and even allowed me to continue assembling breadboards at home when my peers downed tools for the day. It's simple and it has been a miracle that I'm still on the original fuse. While it's a bit of an old mate by now, an upgrade would be welcome, along with a competent soldering iron haha!

I had a mastercraft multimeter. Well my dads meter and I used it to meter out batteries and a diy tape player.