Ben Allfree

Today we planted a node at Desert Peak, a High Sierra Communications site east of Fernley in the Hot Springs Mountains. From the summit you can see for miles in every direction. The Carson Sink and the old lakebed country spread out below in pale, cracked playa that looks like dry salt beds no matter which way you turn. That kind of horizon is exactly why a backbone node here matters. One radio on a peak like this can light up a whole basin that otherwise has almost nothing between it and the sky.

Today we planted a fence node at Patrick Tower, a High Sierra Communications site east of USA Parkway in Storey County. This was an initial site visit: get from zero to one, learn what the location can do, and improve from there. With Dave Metts' generous support, we have another live foothold on the industrial corridor between Reno and the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. That stretch is filling in fast with logistics, manufacturing, and data center construction. A mesh backbone node here extends coverage toward the Truckee Meadows and the I-80 corridor communities that already depend on Patrick Tower for public safety radio.

Virginia Peak now carries a MeshEnvy backbone node at the High Sierra Communications facility on the Pah Rah crest. That single placement matters more than most. From one of the highest summits around Reno, we can start tying the Truckee Meadows to the desert basins, playa country, and ridgelines that surround it.

MeshEnvy is announcing a partnership with High Sierra Communications, a Northern Nevada microwave relay operator Dave Metts founded in 1982. We are starting on their flagship site at Peavine Peak, where Dave's compound sits at the highest point on the mountain with the best line of sight in every direction.

Sierra Electronics has been keeping Northern Nevada connected since 1964. The company was built on public safety and mission-critical radio: hospitals, first responders, schools, and the wide-area systems that let people reach each other when it counts. That community focus is not marketing copy on their website. It is how Jarry Walton and his team have operated for more than sixty years.

When a tower owner with that history offers space on Peavine Peak for a nonprofit mesh repeater, it matters. Sierra Electronics is not just leasing us rack space. They are dedicating real infrastructure, at one of the best vantage points in the Truckee Meadows, to something that serves the public good.

I recently spent some time up on Brock Mountain here in Tonopah, Nevada, for the annual Brock Mountain Users Group Summit. There were about 20 of us in attendance, representing the Department of Energy, the Nevada Department of Transportation, the FAA, and several private infrastructure companies. It was my first time in a room quite like that, and it was incredibly educational.

We just received a very official letter from the Nevada Department of Taxation, and it is a big deal for the physical expansion of our network.

Under Nevada Revised Statute 372.3261 and Nevada Administrative Code 372.700, MeshEnvy NCC has been officially granted sales and use tax exempt status as a charitable organization. This exemption is valid through June 3, 2031, and it changes the math for our deployments in a major way.

Tim and I hiked Flowery Peak on May 22 to stake a repeater on the crest above Virginia City. The node is on the air now. It fills in the east side of town and works alongside our repeaters on Davidson Peak and Ophir Hill to give the Comstock corridor close to full mesh coverage.

At MeshEnvy, we believe that the vast distances of Nevada should not be a barrier to communication. Today, we are announcing our most ambitious project yet. We call it the Silver Triangle. This is a strategic mission to invite and inspire Nevadans from every corner of the state to help us assemble three critical backbones of mesh radio connectivity—an independent layer that complements cellular and tower infrastructure and adds redundancy for public safety.

At MeshEnvy, our mission has always been clear. We want to ensure that anyone, anywhere in Nevada, can stay connected. While the LoRa (Long Range) hardware standards provide a powerful foundation for this vision, the software protocols that drive that hardware are just as critical. After extensive testing and real-world experience, we are officially migrating our primary deployment strategy from Meshtastic to MeshCore.