inaccurate tire pump reading?

[asobi]

I have some pretty terrible luck with air pressure gauges and pumps.  The first gauge I purchased was a $20 round gauge with a roughly 8-inch flexible cord - it worked for a few weeks and after that I could never get the reported pressure to respond above 0 psi.  Complete waste of money - I bought it assuming it would be more reliable and accurate than the cheap ones.  I bought a cheap pen gauge and have had no problems with that, although it measured differently from gas station pumps I've been to.

More recently I purchased a small foot pump along with a patch kit that I could store in my backpack while riding, but I noticed that it tends to read roughly 5 psi below the pen gauge.  Are there any means of recalibrating these pump gauges that you know of, and in general, how do you "trust" a gauge reading?  I tend to be a bit paranoid about my tire pressure - I keep track of fuel economy at fillups in my car, but it's even more important on the motorcycle where tire pressure can affect handling and braking so severely.

[dgyver]

I have 3 Accugage pressure gauges. I had them all checked against a calibrated digital gauge used by a tire installer (stickboy... pimpin' aint easy). One was 2 psi high, 1 psi low and the newest was exact, all checked at 30 psi. Later I bought a couple of inexpensive digital gauges and they were within 0.5 psi, which is their increament of reading.

The stick gauges are typically not as accurate as a quality analog. Be careful handling dial gauges since they can become inaccurate with rough handling.