June on the Mesh: 1,771 Nodes, a T-Deck at 39,000 Feet, and the First Meetup
1,796 registered nodes. That is the total as of June 30, 2026, up from 1,228 in May. The network added 543 registered nodes in one month. Some of that is new hardware. Some of it is existing nodes that finally got MQTT uplink configured and showed up on the map. All of it is real.
Nodes heard in the last 24 hours: 192. Through the peak of the month, weekly active position reporters ran between 396 and 430 unique nodes. The network is busy.
Also: a T-Deck keyboard node crossed over Pennsylvania at 39,659 feet. Multiple times.
By the Numbers
All data pulled June 30, 2026.
1,796 total registered nodes. Of those, 1,297 were heard at some point during June. 1,071 nodes have GPS positions in the database. Average RSSI for June: -102.4 dBm. Average SNR: -8.29 dB.
Hardware breakdown:
| Hardware | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| RAK4631 | 210 | Still the outdoor standard |
| Heltec V3 | 169 | |
| Heltec V4 | 90 | |
| Seeed Wio Tracker | 43 | |
| Tracker T1000-E | 38 | |
| PORTDUINO (Linux) | 32 | Infrastructure backbone |
| Heltec Mesh Node T114 | 31 | |
| T-Beam | 27 | |
| Seeed Solar Node | 25 | Up from 20 in May |
| T-Deck | 24 | Up from 15 in May |
| T-Echo | 17 | |
| Station G2 | 14 | |
| Heltec Mesh Pocket | 14 |
Solar node count: 25, up from 20 in May. Each one of those is a permanent outdoor deployment with a real power budget behind it.
propagation.nepamesh.com now holds 143,358 total position records, more than doubling from May's 66,093. The shadow map coverage grades are sharper now than they have ever been.
The T-Deck at 39,000 Feet
May had two airplanes. June had a regular.
Throughout the month, a node called NQ3U-TDeck appeared in the propagation data at commercial cruising altitude. Hardware: T-Deck, the keyboard-and-screen Meshtastic device, not a pocket node. Role: CLIENT. Its highest recorded altitude in June: 12,088 meters (39,659 feet) on June 6 over Berks County.
It passed over northeastern Pennsylvania on June 4 at 40.71, -76.15, directly in range of the Wyoming Valley. It appeared again June 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 20. Different routes, same altitude band, same node.
This is not a hobbyist floating a balloon. This is someone carrying a T-Deck in their bag on commercial flights, and their node checks in with the mesh every time a routing passes over Pennsylvania.
At nearly 40,000 feet, the radio horizon extends past 330 kilometers. Every NEPAMesh node with a clear sky overhead was within potential range on those crossings. The node shows up in our database because at least one ground gateway heard it and pushed the position via MQTT.
The same node also logs a companion: NQ3U H2T, a Heltec Mesh Node T114, apparently ground-based. NQ3U is running both. One stays home; the other flies.
June 7: The First Meetup
On June 7, NEPAMesh had its first in-person meet-and-greet. Five or six people showed up: node operators who had only known each other as node names on the map and usernames in Discord. They compared hardware and talked through the Back Mountain dead zone, a coverage gap the shadow map has been flagging for months and a spot where a well-placed node would make a real difference.
That conversation is exactly what these events are for. The shadow map can point at a coordinate. The people in the room know who has a ridgeline, a tall tree, or a rooftop in the right place.
What's Coming: Build Day on July 12
The next event is a build day at Hackworks on July 12. If you have been thinking about building a node, upgrading an antenna, or just want to sit next to someone who has done it before, this is the event for it. More details in the Discord and on Facebook.
The Rest of June
Chani, a RAK4631 that had been running for 464 days without a reset, finally rebooted sometime in the last 24 hours of the month. FH Repeater now leads the uptime board at 453 days. OTT Meshtastic at 451. Woodpecker at 404. These nodes are the connective tissue the mesh relies on.
SUSQ VAL PA Mesh - York - W3HZU is running at 52.2% channel utilization, the highest on the network. That node is working.
Two channel utilization alerts fired in June. Both resolved without intervention. The monitoring is doing what it is supposed to do.
Where Things Stand
1,796 nodes registered. 1,297 heard in June. 192 active in the last 24 hours.
A T-Deck keyboard node crossed over Pennsylvania at 39,659 feet, multiple times, and left position records in the database each time. A ground community that started as strangers with radios met in person for the first time.
Solar deployments are at 25 and climbing. The position database crossed 143,000 records. The propagation shadow map is more accurate than it has ever been.
If you have a node, make sure MQTT uplink is configured. Five minutes of setup puts you on the map. If you do not have a node yet, the build day on July 12 at Hackworks is a good place to start.
More in July.
NEPAMesh is a community Meshtastic network covering Northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley. Live map at map.nepamesh.com. Questions in the Discord.
Meshtastic is a registered trademark of Meshtastic LLC. No warranty is provided. Use at your own risk. This post is not endorsed by or affiliated with Meshtastic LLC.
