Metacrisis Action Lab #2

Off-Grid Comms with Signals Rising

When the grid goes down (a blackout, a hurricane, a crowd that overwhelms the cell towers), the people who can still reach each other are the ones who set up their comms and practiced before they needed them.

June 25, 2026 · Lightning Lofts, Brooklyn, NY

☞ Download the deck☞ See the event on Luma
Audio briefingThe lab in 19 min

Made by AI from the write-up on this page, so the room reaches people who could not be in it. Not a podcast episode.

Off-Grid Comms with Signals Rising — Metacrisis Action Lab #2

§97.403

your right to call for help on any frequency

P.A.C.E.

the four-layer comms plan

Rooftop

where the radios came out

What this was

The Metacrisis Action Labs are the level-up-yourself counterpart to the Metacrisis Salons: less talk, more hardware in your hands. Action Lab #2 brought in Spike from Signals Rising, a radio mutual-aid nonprofit, to teach off-grid emergency communications: what you actually do when the cell network goes dark.

The room was mostly neighbors from a few blocks in every direction, drawn to the mutual-aid side more than the radio side. Spike walked the group through the essentials: the disaster lifecycle and where communications fail, the radio spectrum, the ladder of radio services from free walkie-talkies up to licensed ham, the one FCC rule that lets anyone call for help in a life-or-death emergency, and how to build a layered PACE plan before you need it. Then everyone grabbed a handheld and went up to the rooftop to use them.

Spike from Signals Rising teaching off-grid comms from a low couch, the radio-wave-propagation slide projected on the wall behind him and bowls of food on the coffee table.

Who led it

Spike

Signals Rising ↗

A landscaper and gardener by day, and a radio operator with Signals Rising, a nonprofit that gives community and mutual-aid groups the hardware, training, and licensing support to stand up their own emergency communications. They build solar-powered repeaters (sell one, give one to a mutual-aid group) and run hands-on workshops like this one across the country.

An attendee gestures mid-explanation in the circle of leather couches during the indoor session.
On the rooftop afterward, attendees test FRS handheld radios against a painted geometric mural in the evening light.
Two participants laugh as they raise their handheld radios on the rooftop turf at dusk.
An attendee talks into a handheld radio on a blue rooftop bench, a sheet of paper from the relay game beside him.
A participant sketches on paper while keying a radio, the partner relay game, where one person describes and the other draws without looking.
Two attendees compare radios and notes on the rooftop as the light fades over Brooklyn.

What we walked away knowing

Set it up and drill it before the emergency. When the strain hits, you run on what you already built.

Communications and the power grid fail in the immediate phase of a disaster. In that window, neighborhood mutual-aid groups that can coordinate are faster and more effective than FEMA.

FCC Rule 47 CFR §97.403 gives anyone the legal right to use any radio, on any frequency, to call for help when normal communication systems are down and a life is at stake.

FRS, MURS, and CB need no license at all. GMRS is the easy on-ramp: about $35, no test, ten years, real power. Ham unlocks the most but requires a test.

VHF and UHF travel by line of sight, so where your antenna sits matters more than how many watts you push. A repeater on a tall rooftop is what turns a handheld into citywide reach.

Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency: layer your ways of reaching people so that when the first fails, you already know the second, third, and fourth. Agree on check-in times and frequencies before you scatter.

Meshtastic over the LoRa band is low-power, solar-friendly, and decentralized. Messages hop node to node until they find a path. NYC already has a citywide mesh; a node on your roof ties you in.

Nets, check-ins, the phonetic alphabet, signal reports, clear short transmissions: drill them until they're old hat, because you don't want to be learning them under pressure when it counts.

Reference

The cheat sheet

The reference tables from the session, rebuilt so you can come back to them. Tap one to open it; scroll sideways on a phone.

ServiceBandChannelsMax legal powerLicense
FRSUHF222 WNone
MURSVHF52 WNone
CBHF404 WNone
GMRSUHF3050 W~$35, no test, 10 yrs
HamHF · VHF · UHFMany1500 WTest required, 10 yrs
PrimaryAlternateContingencyEmergency
VoiceVHF/UHF simplex (MURS, FRS, GMRS, CB, Ham)VHF/UHF repeaters (GMRS, Ham)HF NVIS (<300 mi)HF DX (>300 mi)
DataLoRa mesh + APRSOpenMANET (Wi-Fi HaLow)HF Winlink / FLDIGI / JS8CallHF DX Winlink / FLDIGI / JS8Call
SatelliteStarlinkSatellite messengerSatellite phoneSmartphone satellite SOS
One-wayAM/FM, NOAA, SKYWARNPublic addressBulletin boardMirror, flares, etc.
SystemRangePowerSends
LoRa mesh (sub-GHz)1–30+ miLowText only
OpenMANET (Wi-Fi HaLow)~1–3 miModerateVoice, video, files
HF (3–30 MHz)<300 mi NVIS → global DXLow–HighVoice + slow data
VHF / UHF (30 MHz–3 GHz)<1–50 miLow–HighVoice, slow data, APRS
Satellite (10–14 GHz)GlobalLow–ModerateVoice + low data

All of it is off-grid: it runs on batteries and solar when the lights go out.

Go deeper

Resources & where to plug in

From the Archives

Coming up

Sat, Nov 7 · RSVP

Coops against Collapse - Metacrisis Salon #16

☞ Reserve a seat

See past events

Metacrisis Action Lab No. 1 · Jun 23, 2026

Two Weeks, No Grid

Could your household last fourteen days without power, water, or internet? Neighbors mapped the full plan together, from water storage to rice math to backup comms.

Metacrisis Action Lab No. 3 · Jun 28, 2026

Rooftop Reciprocity

A bare Brooklyn rooftop became food, medicine, and pollinator habitat in an afternoon. A hands-on lab on growing resilience into the city, one corner at a time.

Metacrisis Salon No. 11 · Jun 6, 2026

How we build an Ecocivilization

The system extracts and accelerates because that is what it was built to do. A night on what an ecocivilization would look like, and how you grow one inside the shell of the old.

☞ All recaps (Salons & Action Labs)