had time to do some testing based on @rp201rp 's ideas :

  1. tried both using either and both ethernet and wireless (repeater) for WAN - didn’t make a difference
  2. disabled and enabled DoT and/or “override dns for all clients” - didn’t make a difference
  3. tried using either wireless or ethernet for my lan connection - didn’t make a difference
  4. warm reboots between each and every configuration change