One other trick you can try to get a pH reading - take a sample of pool water and dilute it with equal parts of DISTILLED water (not bottled spring water or tap water). You can typically buy DISTILLED water in a supermarket as it is used in steam irons and coffee pots.

It turns out that DISTILLED water has a pH of 7.0 And practically 0ppm TA. Therefore, mixing it with pool water will not change the pH due to the buffering capability of the pool water (the pool water sample resists pH changes because it had a much higher TA than the DISTILLED water).

If you do this, you should be able to get a better read of your pH.