About the network
Tug Fork Hollow is LoTek’s most spread-out network: a string of homes along creek roads between steep ridges, where the nearest cable service ends eleven miles downstream. Ridge-top relays carry the backbone from hollow to hollow, and most nodes run on solar power.
Schematic
Hover over or tap a node for its details, and click or tap again to open it. With a keyboard, move to the schematic and use the arrow keys.
Uptime
99.97% uptime over the last 90 days, with 1 day of degraded service or maintenance.
Governance
- Owned by
- Tug Fork Hollow Neighborhood Network
- Legal home
- Cooperative corporation, owned by member households
- Members
- 181 households, one vote each
- Monthly assembly
- Last Monday of each month, 7:30 pm, at the housing cooperative’s lobby
- Annual assembly
- Every January
- Maintenance fund
- $4 a month per household, suggested. No household is disconnected for not paying.
Stewards
Elected by the members. Listed by first name and initial.
- Cedric D.Network steward · since 2020
- Marisol R.Treasurer · since 2018
- Kateryna L.Membership steward · since 2025
Backhaul
Links that carry the network’s traffic to the wider internet.
| Link | Medium | Capacity | Far end | Peak use yesterday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LT-33-BH1 | Licensed microwave, 6 GHz | 2 Gbps | Tower site, Welch | 20% |
Maintenance log
Power cut. The rooftop nodes on the affected blocks went down with the grid. Hubs stayed up on battery.
Firmware 4.6.2 rollout. Staged firmware rollout to every node, one hub’s area at a time. Each node restarted once.
Maintenance fund audit presented to members and approved.
Hardware refresh: 8 nodes upgraded to Stoop R6 over the year.
Expansion: three new nodes in 2026, mostly in grids C2, E4 and H4.
Annual assembly: 10 members attended and elected three stewards.
N-1571 replaced under warranty after its radio stopped associating.
Radio on N-2621 replaced after water got into the enclosure.
Annual assembly: 19 members attended and elected two stewards.
Rooftop agreements reviewed; 2 renewed with new building owners.
Steward training on monitoring and fault-finding: 10 attended.
Heavy rain: water ingress found and fixed in 8 enclosures.
New hub on the ridge-top mast on leased land: N-2940.
Wind’s howling. Two dishes knocked out of alignment overnight on the north ridge; realigned in the morning.
Grounding on N-1405 redone after an inspection found a corroded lug.
Power injector for N-2594 replaced after a surge.
New hub on the grain elevator: N-2621.
Hardware refresh: 3 nodes upgraded to Stoop R5 over the year.
Firmware 4.0 rolled out to every node.
New hub on the volunteer fire company tower: N-1412.
Network switched on: 10 nodes installed by 145 volunteers over a weekend.
Founding assembly: the Tug Fork Hollow Neighborhood Network adopts its charter and elects three stewards.