This is a site and video blog for anyone interested in solar power, electronic measurement equipment, reviews, how to’s, HAM radio and Arduino projects presented from an amateur / hobbyist / enthusiast point of view.

My name is Martin Lorton…

I was born in Guildford, Surrey…in the UK…and 6 months thereafter my parents…along with my two older brothers emigrated to South Africa….and Cape Town became home.

I went to Vredehoek primary school…then Sea Point primary school….then Sea Point High School. I had mediocre results in matric (grade 12..standard 10) so had to go to technical college to get my N4 so I could get into Cape Technikon to start studying electronics (poor maths result…). The course was electrical engineering, light current. The course at the time was a 3 or 4 year course with 6 months of classes (theory) and then six months of in-service training.

I only ended up completing my T2 (2nd year) and then decided to go into IT…

I started my IT career (1991) working for a company that supplied Tatung PCs to Shell Oil and I worked as on on-site support engineer at Shell in Cape Town. I soon gained an interest and exposure to Novell networking (Netware 3.11 at the time) and left the company doing PC support and starting working directly for Shell as a network support engineer / certified CNE 4.

After about 5 years at Shell I left to travel Europe for a while and then worked in the UK for Sun Alliance. I then returned to South Africa and found work back at Shell again as a network support engineer. I finally left around 2000 and did a 6 month stint in Dublin, Ireland, working for HP.

I returned to South Africa and after a while found work with EDS (started by Ross Perot). EDS contracted their support services to BP Southern Africa to look after their Windows server network.

After Windows 2000 and Active Directory came about, EDS won the contract to support BP USA, UK and a fair part of Europe.

In 2008 we (family) came to the USA as my wife was offered a secondment by her company. I retained my job and I telecommuted from the US. My role had changed a little…I no longer did technical support but assisted with scoping and writing up new business opportunities that were presented to EDS by BP.

As the South African work day ended around 1pm / 2pm for me in the US… it gave me time to tinker and play…. that’s when I started sharing videos on Youtube for fun!

We returned to Cape Town in December of 2010…. at that stage HP had purchased EDS…. as part of cost saving exercises…many of us had our jobs shipped off to India… so by April 2011 I was unemployed…

I tried work doing solar power, energy audits and heat pump installations…but none of that took off…. after not being paid for a small solar powered project…and being rather peeved…I decided to try make money out of running my Youtube channel full time (December 2011)…it was at this time that Comtest (Fluke agents) found me and started loaning me kit for review…

How I started making a living by video blogging

The rest… as they say is history…. and I count myself very fortunate that this line of “work” keeps food on the table.

That’s me!