Before everyone attacks me about reading through previous threads, yes I have but no one seems to have wrote a thread with my unique issue.?

I am running a wifi (2.4GHz) mesh system in my house and from when I first built my node it was never able to get on wifi.?
it runs flawlessly over ethernet.?
that being said; I wanted to relocate the node to a bookshelf for better coverage etc. so I did a complete from scratch config of hamvoip (latest and greatest version).? I found that I had to plug a monitor and keyboard into the PiHat and manually configure the wifi in leu of using ethernet and DHCP. it worked out well... thus far
I completed the config, and I was able to get in with SSH, node remote, and DVswitch.?
I did however notice that over an uncertain amount of time, the node drops from other nodes and I concluded it was the network when my open SSH session and node remote connections died as well. in some cased those connections drop before the node disconnects (well, drops connection) from other nodes.?
This is driving me absolutely bonkers and I'd love to hear if someone can tell me they've experienced the same behavior with a similar wifi system.?
Looking for advice and/or sanity check here.?

thanks in advance.
73, KD2KSI?
Chris