Thanks to all who have responded with assistance in this topic.  I ordered the Zyex strings, and the FM carbon fiber bow, and a few sundries (rosin, peg drops, and a clip-on tuner) to the tune of about $150 worth of stuff.  So my used violin so far has cost me about $210 now, but I'm sure that it will have far better strings than the strings the CV200 came with initially, and, for sure, a far better bow. 

So this retired old guy will start learning the violin again, after an abortive start in junior high school in Los Angeles in 1958, with probably a terrible school instrument. 

Now, after having gained an appreciation of finer classical music in the meantime, I am determined to succeed in playing something that me and my family will like.

OK, I finally got the strings, bow, sona tuner et al, and I wanted to change the strings and tune the violin I had recently purchased. When purchased, the violin was missing the D string. The pegs were kind of tight. Fortunately I bought some peg drops. They are still kind of tight but I'm giving the peg drops a day or so to "work in"--more on that later.

I replaced the missing D string and then all the others in the following order: G A E.

I used the Zyex strings I bought. There were no particular surprises except that I had a hard time unwinding the old E string.  When I finally got it out, there was a severe kink in the string that was present in the original installation. I made sure to do the dipsie-doodle in the first wind to anchor the string on the peg. As I replaced each string, I made sure that the string's ring was properly seated in the fine tuner mechaniism.  The original ring ends were, I thought, rather helter skelter, and not vertical in the ring catch). I gave each string a very rough tune to maintain reasonable
tension on the bridge. I also corrected the forward lean of the bridge's original position.

Then I started tuning.  I read the instructions for the sona Tuner. Could they be in any more fine print?. I had some real trouble attaining tuning on the strings, partly because this was my first use with the sona tuner.

I selected violin mode (V) and the Reference pitch of 440 Hz. I think this 440 Hz is the actual target frequency for the A string.  The sona uses an LCD display and an LED to show the tuning progress.  I started with the A string. There is KEY legend on the sona display where small two-digit will display which displays, according the the sona instructions, the scale in the chromatic mode. It is not supposed to work in the violin mode. Next to the KEY legend is the note display, and there is sort of a bar graph thingie and an led to tell you you are on a note.

As I started tuning, I noted that it was pretty hard to get right on the the appropriate note and that when a note was isplayed, on the left side of the note was a number. I was plucking rather than bowing the string. Later, the tuner seemed to respond better to bowed sounds.

When tuning the G string a small number (4, I think) and the large letter G were displayed. When tuning the D string, a small 3 and a D was displayed. and with the A string, a small 2 and an A was displayed. For E, E was displayed and a small 1. At first I thought the numbers were the associated octave numbers of the letter notes, but it now appears that in violin mode, the small numbers are the string number sequence, left to right. They can't be the true octave numbers because on a violin the open string notes are as follows:

G3 196.00 Hz sona display: 4G
D4 293.66 Hz sona display: 3D
A4 440.00 Hz sona diaplay: 2D
E5 659.25 Hz sona diaplay: 1E

This notation on the sona was a bit confusing but I'm pretty sure the sona is referencing the string number.

So with all the confusion and trouble getting the tuning to stick, I set the instrument aside and started asking these questions on line. Maybe after a day or so the peg drops will be working better and the violin will adjust to its new tensions and will be Easier to tune. Then I can crank out and rosin up my new Fiddlerman CF bow.

Panzón said

I understood that peg drops were used to prevent pegs from slipping, and that if your pegs were sticking, peg compound or dope was what should be used. According to this luthier's website, peg drops are made of rosin dissolved in alcohol. I've never used peg drops, so I don't know what effect they have, but all the various peg drops I've seen online indicate that they are used to prevent slipping pegs.

I goofed up here pretty bad, I think.  I got the peg drops because I thought they were a cure-all for both sticking and slipping.  Apparently for sticking I should have gotten peg dope.  So I now have a real problem turning the pegs smoothly.  I think I will turn this into and advantage here and do an installation of pegs with planetary gears and remove all the fine tuners -- even the E string fine tuner -- from the tailpiece.

These geared pegs are called Knilling pegs I think. I think that worn fine tuners might also be a problem on my violin keeping or getting tuned.  I've read that fine tuners can destroy some of the finer string overtones that are transmitted into the violin. 

So I am off to purchase a violin peg reamer, which is a required tool for the fitting of planetary pegs.  Seems like these reamer tools (at least the inexpensive ones) come from China, so It'll be a couple of weeks in shipping.  In the meantime I can get some ideas about whether I should get Knilling or some other brand of planetary gear pegs.

Regarding the Sona tuner:  I use this tuner, and have found it easier to use the chromatic mode, when changing strings, to bring the string close to the correct pitch, and then use the violin mode to fine tune. In the chromatic mode, you can see where you are in pitch at all times, but in the violin mode, if the pitch isn't close, the tuner seems to get "lost".

I'm sorta getting the hang of this tuner.  I tried the chromatic mode, but I'm not sure of the display when tuning in that mode, primarily because when it shows a letter for the note, I think it also shows the octave number. But the octave number is too small for me to really see it. I am worried about tuning an octave over in chromatic mode and putting too much tension on the bridge. Maybe I need to get my glasses which I've not worn for over a year now.  I have two Sona tuners, one I got for my grandson when he starts playing in September, so I'm thinking about comparing the two to see if I have the same violin mode problems with both tuners. I'm chalking up most of my tuning problems to sticking pegs.  But all of this will need to wait now until I get my new planetary tuning pegs installed.