Hi Ragnar, good to hear you enjoyed checking out my website. Yes, the ING was a great place to work. Before coming here I spent a few months at the Royal Greenwich Observatory , then still at Herstmonceux in Sussex - learning about the systems I would be looking after. I did 16 years full time up to 2002 and was then made redundant However, I then managed to work for them as a self employed part time contractor doing 2 days a week from 2004 to 2010. After that I occasionally did jobs for the Liverpool Telescope, but nothing recently.
As for DIY astro related work... Not really. I helped a friend doing electronics jobs who had a well equipped observatory at Tacande on the west side of the island, but he sold up and moved back to mainland Spain. Interestingly, he sold his property and observatory to a guy in the UK who spends half his time between Cambridge and La Palma! So I go over and help him out occasionally when he's on island. There is also a remote observatory on the land which was set up by Kevin Hills - a BAA member who specialises in minor planets and comets - https://www.hills-observatory.org/ - If there are problems (and the new owner of the property is back in the UK), Kevin contacts me and I go over and hopefully can resolve the issue.
So in some respects, doing this work is very similar to the time when I was a night duty engineer up at the ING and called out to fix problems. I just love being around telescopes and instruments and repairing them when they break down
Regards John