Yanking My Event Monitor's Chain

I thought this might be of interest to anyone who's just had an event monitor hooked up for the first time.

The one I'm wearing, brand name "King of Hearts Express", displays your heart rate on the liquid crystal screen.

A few things to note:

1) The flashing signal to indicate the monitor is receiving a signal does not flash in time with your heart rhythm like a Polar brand exercise heart monitor would.  

2) Moving around can cause aberrant readings that DO NOT reflect your actual heart rate.  On the morning of day 2, I was changing clothes, glanced at the monitor and it said 195.  I felt fine.  Checked my pulse, and as soon as I did, I could tell my pulse was fine, and the LCD screen reading quickly dropped down to the 80's.  Thought I might have just missed a run of SVT or A-fib or something.  I called the hospitals heart monitoring center and they confirmed that brief, wild readings when moving around happen quite often.

3) Sitting still but wiggling the wires can have the same effect.  I confirmed this accidentally.  Was showing my wife the monitor and the HR jumped by 30.  I set it down and the HR went back down.  I picked it up again and wiggled the wires for a few seconds and the HR jumped to just over 100 (it had previously been 70).  I could feel my pulse and it was unchanged.

I hate this stupid stuff.  A pox on you, King of Hearts.