The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the influence of EC probe parameters on the performance of the complete NDE system and to describe experimental methods for measuring these parameters. Combined theory and experiment is required to quantify probe response, to design optimum probes for specific applications, to verify the reproducibility of probe performance during manufacture, and to verify the stability and precision of probe calibration. For these purposes it is necessary to consider, at least, the following probe parameters: (1) input impedance, for design of adjacent circuitry; (2) selfresonant frequency, for upper frequency limits of operation; (3) the ratio of probe field intensity to input current, for sensitivity; and (4) the distribution (or shape) of the flaw interrogating field generated by the probe -for control of flaw response, liftoff response and spatial resolution (i.e., separation of closely spaced flaws and discrimination against edges and corners).Measurements of probe impedance and self-resonant frequency are standard, and will not be discussed here. For items (3) and (4) there are, in general, two classes of experiment that may be used: direct methods, where one measures probe characteristics with instruments which are independent of the probe (such as measuring the magnetic field distribution of a probe with a small Hall-effect probe), and perturbation methods, where one examines the field 477