The Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District’s monthly Water Quality Monitoring Program collects chemical readings from streams and waterbodies from Prince William and its Cities. This program uses the YSI Pro DSS Probe which includes conductivity, an indicator of dissolved salts.

I wanted a way to track road chemicals entering the waterways after snow and ice events more frequently than the scheduled Conservation District's monthly YSI probe readings. I tried a cheap ($10) conductivity meter, but it did not temperature compensate and was grossly inaccurate. I switched to an Extech EC100 (around $60-70). This left me amazed. This meter is temperature-compensated and can be set up to duplicate the readings of a YSI Pro DSS almost perfectly. It is kept calibrated with YSI’s 1000 µS/cm fluid. It uses four-button batteries that may need replacement every year or two. The meter holds calibration well but will become inaccurate if the batteries run low.