FBinNY 

I'll give you the same advice I give when teaching wheelbuilding.

If you own a tension meter, lock it up and give the key to a friend.

Forget about tension, and focus on length. Consider for a moment, a wheel where every spoke is tensioned to the identical length. Barring slight variations in the rim, that wheel will be perfectly true, and with uniform tension.

So, as you build, preserve uniform spoke length starting off with your thumbnail on the first thread, and bringing all nipples to there. Then add tension and, if necessary, correcting dish, turning all the nipples equal amounts. Ignore any temptation to align until it feels fairly firm.

Then set the elbows and stress relieve before going back to raising tension.

Only as the wheel starts feeling fairly tight, can you think about truing, but do so with small adjustments spread over many nipples. Generally, no nipple should ever be a full turn more or less average.

Now, when it's true and tight, pull out the tension meter to check your work.

Keep in mind, that uneven tension isn't a normal condition, it's the caused by builders who don't focus on preserving uniform length.