Reading that damn speed strobe disc

I've owned one of these for several years and couldn't recommend it more. It always works like a champ with the lights on or off: http://www.musicdirect.com/p-7206-kab-speedstrobe.aspx

What you need, in order to read a strobe disc, is a light source that is flickering to the 60 hz frequency of the power line. I don't know what kind of bulb you have in your light source, but, you should try a different kind of light. Incandescent bulbs do flicker enough to make the strobe markings visible (the image will look a bit hazy, but, you should see a faint pattern of still or slowly rotating lines. Flourescent bulbs tend to be better at bringing out the pattern. A hard time seeing the pattern is more an issue of lighting than problems with the strobe disc itself.

You could try a blue LED night light plugged into an extension cord. I have a blue and a white one and the blue is so much easier to see for some reason on my cream colored disc with black marks. Doing it at night with all other lights out is also a big help.