Try it as well at a variety of light levels. Sometimes, when meters go out of whack, they become non linear. It could happen that it is 1 stop out at EV 4, but 3 stops out at EV 11.
If it is consistently out by the same amount, then you can just dial in the correction.
One further note - experiment with the position of the meter until you get a good appreciation of the angle of acceptance.
IIRC the very first hand meter I ever owned was a Vivitar 30 - I think I traded it in for my Gossen Profisix.
Matt