The disclosure describes is a channel switching strategy and corresponding protocol for a mesh network which comprises a segment controller (SC) and a large number of outdoor luminaire controllers (OLCs) or other network nodes. A channel switching process is initiated and managed by the SC which transmits a channel switching command to all nodes in the system. Following the actual channel switch, the SC delegate's responsibility to request an orphan node to switch to the new channel to a selected delegate node which is a neighbor node of the orphan node. The selection of the delegate node may be based on a prioritization. When an OLC does not receive any messages for a specified, prolonged period of time, it may scan available frequency bands to find the (new) channel in which the networked system operates at that time.