.......The high input impedance of the voltmeter means you can get erroneous readings. If you put a load on that 1.2V, such as a LED and current limiting resistor, the voltage might disappear. ........ In house wiring, when I put a meter on black or white conductors, to check for voltage, I will get readings when the circuit breaker is off. Not 120V AC. Which confirms the breaker is off. (just doing a safety check).
I read this and my hair stood up. I was a traffic signal technician for over 31 years. I'm sure by my avatar you'd never guess! LOL
Anyway, I used either a Triplett 630 or a Simpson 260 (my fav), both analog, low impedance VOM's to troubleshoot 120 and 240 VAC issues in the field. Such a VOM will show things, USEFUL things, a digital meter cannot ( at least, back then) and the user needs to know what to look for.
When the traffic signals are in flashing mode, with an analog VOM you can read an induced voltage from 5 to 10 volts on the non-flashing colors (green or yellow when it's an all-red flashing intersection), up and down, from 0 to 10 VAC, at the same rate as the flasher (40 to 50 times per minute) but NOT on any wire that is shorted to ground, say by an underground failure, vandals (morons would unscrew lamps and put penny in socket then screw lamp back in) or other issue.
On an open or 'cut' wire, a wire supposed to be connected to between 2 and 4 total 150 watt incandescent traffic signal lamps or 25 watt LED modules, you would get a voltage swing as much as 100 VAC because there was no load, no resistance, because the wire was 'cut' (open) before it made to the lamps, through the lamps and then to neutral.
A digital meter would never see either of those indicators...most of the time, the sampling rate wherein it would sample the analog then convert to digital to produce the reading was too low in early digital meters. By the time it 'saw' the voltage, decided what to display and displayed it, it was gone. And the digital meters had too high of an input impedance to be used on trying to determine what's happening in the field when you have 5 or 6 runs of PVC conduit underground, each with 12 to 48 each of #14 copper conductors running in parallel, right next to each other, actually intertwined to a degree. Being able to read how a conductor reacts to changing induced voltages will tell you if the conductor is OK, open or shorted....if you know how to read it. Maybe today's digital meters can tell you ( I retired in '04) but the ones around from about '80 to '04 sure could not.
I had a digital meter and used it a lot when doing on/off, go/no-go testing or locating wilres via continuity but the meter I used to tell me what was REALLY going on in the field (open wires, shorted wires, etc.) was my trusty old analog VOM.
Yep, I have become my dad. 