If you don't want to spend $300-400, try the Dr.Meter moisture meter. I'm a casual user of a moisture meter, and have owned the Wagner and the Dr.Meter. Gave the Wagner to my son, and the Dr.Meter seems to do as good a job as the Wagner did. Same theory of operation. Caveat - I haven't dried my own locally cut timber since I got the Dr.Meter, so I haven't tested it on wood with high moisture content. That's the reason I got the Wagner originally. Lately I've just used the Dr.Meter on lumber that I buy already dried, or stuff in my shop. Since I also live in Colorado, everything is pretty much always down in the 5-9% range, except for the construction lumber that has been "kiln dried" to 15%. At any rate, the Dr.Meter is accurate enough for my needs.
https://www.amazon.com/d/Moisture-M...=UTF8&qid=1541947828&sr=8-4&keywords=Dr.Meter+moisture+meter
The biggest difference between the two is that Wagner sensor was on the top edge, probably only 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick, so I felt more comfortable using it on the edge of a board. I would use a block plane to smooth a small section of edge and use the Wagner on that. The Dr.Meter has a wider sensor on the back, so I'm not as confident that it can be used effectively on edge, and I've had it for less than a year, so not enough experience with it on a variety of boards to get a feel for whether that matters. I'm -not- comfortable face-planing a board in a lumberyard to use the Dr.Meter on it.
That said, it looks to me like the one I had is no longer available new, and the older yellow Wagner meter currently for sale, as well as the new Wagner Orion pinless meters also have the wide sensors on the back. If I had found a model for sale with the sensor on the edge, I would probably have gotten that one, but doesn't look like anyone makes one like that any more.
