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Sorry for the misunderstanding, I was not saying to test in circuit powered up, or in circuit, It was just a simple resistance check to see if coil was intact just like a speaker coil, which is always detached from the power amp before testing, because the drive amp will always have a lower impedance than the device meter or speaker. I took my cue from the picture in which the meter appeared to be detached. I also should of mentioned that most multimeters have enough power to move a good meter and should only be momentarily applied. It has been a while for me that I worked on many mechanical meters in 160's and other mixing consoles, in the days where consoles had them. most stuck meters could be flushed and exercised to get them to move again, as long as the coil is intact there is a good chance.  But this is a delicate operation and sometimes does not work and the meter will drag or just refuse to pivot any longer. and solvents and lubricant can stain the back plate with the scale. There is a little screw that adjusts the spring tension to get the needle to rest at infinity and, the OdB (0 dB gain reduction) is set with the electronics, I am not sure what pot. A known external source can be used to check the scale of the meter which allows you to calibrate threshold and ratio settings, but a meter on the output should be used to check the VU meter's accuracy. Which can be tricky especially on the Gain reduction settings but when properly setup can really be helpful in a session.