Thanks gentelmen, I have three of them so i could let the smoke out of one, I try to keep a spare, of anything i have, on hand, just in case. Like i said it's pretty old & looks like surplus military to me because of the 50, 60 Hz indication on the dial. guess i'll try the 15,000 ohm resistor & battery as Mcac Gyver suggests, seems like it would be less distructive to me, but what do i know. thanks again for the input.
SR.