[pianotech] offset of SAT to non-440

[David Nereson]

    First of all, I did call Inventronics about this first, but 
just couldn't seem to get "on the same page."
    This time of year, most pianos are sharp from summer 
humidity.  Rather than lower them all down to A440, knowing 
they'll need a pitch raise in November if I do, I just tune them 
sharp.  This requires offsetting the SAT to a sharper pitch.
    Following the outlined procedure in the instruction manual, 
I turn the unit on, press Tune, then play A4 on the piano, then 
press the Cents Up button on the SAT (III) until the lights 
stop, then press Shift, Reset.  The unit should now be offset to 
the higher pitch.  Then I go ahead and measure the SAT numbers 
and store them to a page in memory.  Before starting in to tune, 
I go to A4 on the SAT and play A4 on the piano to make sure the 
lights are still stopped, i.e., that the unit is offset to the 
pitch of A4.
    Here's the problem:  the lights are never stopped at A4 
after performing the offset. They're always rotating 
counterclockwise, indicating that A4 is flat!  Well, I don't 
want to raise the piano any sharper!  Why, after having 
supposedly offset the unit's reference point, does it still show 
A4 as flat?  Should I have A5 or A6 in the window when I offset? 
(I've tried both, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.) 
The guy at Inventronics said to "drop down a couple cents," or 
to "leave off a couple cents" or something like that, but I'm 
not sure what he meant.
    In reality, I don't raise the whole piano to the sharpness 
of the low tenor, which is usually the sharpest area of the 
piano.  I'll lower the low tenor some, leave the treble where it 
is, and maybe pull the bass up a tad.  On older pianos, I don't 
like to have to pull the bass up ANY, because of possible string 
breakage, but if I don't then I have to lower all of the tenor 
and treble, and do a pitch raise when November comes along.  And 
these school systems don't want to tune more than once a year if 
they can get away with it.
    But I digressed.  Why don't the lights stand still after 
having supposedly offset the pitch?
    --David Nereson, RPT