Reporting back....
Talk about a helpful guy... Bob at Ace was great. I had missed his response (above),either because his and mine crossed in cyberspace or because the messages had gone to a page two and I missed that. Anyway, I got the phone number off of the manual for the tester and called. Not knowing about his reponse on-list, imagine my surprise when he says, "Hi, is this Dick in Seattle? I've been expecting your call..." To which I replied, intelligently, "Huh?"
Anyway, he went over the machine with me, testing several arrows while I was right there with a phone in my hand. The machine is fine. The problem is apparently a combination of operator timidity and atmospheric humidity. Being a first batch of arrows, I guess I was looking for absolutes... to the ounce kind of stuff. Bob reassured me that things are really OK, and I can proceed to keep doing what I'm doing and the arrows will keep going where they're going.
I want to thank all of you for your responses and help. This is a great list and resource.
Dick in Seattle... who is going to go downstairs, turn the light off over the meter, and just shoot the silly arrows, which seem to go into the orange stick-on in spite of most things I do...