Resiliency Action Lab #2 · June 25, 2026

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.

Lightning Society Lofts, Brooklyn, NY

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Off-Grid Comms with Signals Rising — Resiliency 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 Resiliency Action Labs are the hands-on, 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 — a few blocks in every direction — and people drawn to the mutual-aid side of it 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 actually use them.

Who taught 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.

The session

How the night unfolded

Act I · The theoryin the living room

Intros · the whole room

Everyone said where they live and why they came — Carroll Gardens, Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene, West Harlem, the Lower East Side. Climate-anxiety facilitators, a film-production veteran, an NYC Mesh volunteer, mutual-aid organizers. More neighbors than radio nerds.

Why comms fail · Spike

The disaster lifecycle — before, the immediate 0–72 hours, the 1–2 week stretch, the long tail. Cell towers and the power grid go down in the immediate phase, and neighborhood mutual aid is faster than FEMA in the first 72 hours.

How radio works · Spike

Spectrum, propagation, antennas, power, terrain. The headline: get high. VHF/UHF is line-of-sight, so antenna height beats raw wattage, and a repeater on a tall roof multiplies everyone's range.

The legal on-ramp · Spike

The ladder of radio services — FRS, MURS, CB, GMRS, ham — and FCC Rule §97.403: in a true emergency, anyone can use any radio on any frequency to call for help.

Make a plan · Spike

PACE planning, operational nets and net control, signal reports, and the civilian off-grid ecosystem — Meshtastic mesh, HF, satellite. There's already a citywide LoRa mesh humming over New York.

To the roof · everyone

Grab a handheld, learn to switch it to low power, and go.

Act II · The practiceon the rooftop

Hands on the hardware · everyone

FRS handhelds out, tuned to a shared channel — the same family-radio frequencies kids' walkie-talkies run on, used correctly and legally.

The origami relay · partners

A communication game: one partner folds an origami fortune-teller while the other relays the instructions over the radio, without looking — clarity under constraint, which is the whole skill of emergency comms.

The room, the roof

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.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 you walk away knowing

  1. 01

    You can't build it during the crisis

    Infrastructure gets set up and practiced before the emergency, never during it. When the strain hits, you're employing what you already built and drilled — not figuring it out for the first time.

  2. 02

    The first 72 hours are neighborhood-scale

    Communications and the power grid fail in the immediate phase of a disaster. In that window, regular neighborhood mutual-aid groups are consistently faster and more effective than official responders — if they can coordinate.

  3. 03

    In a real emergency, the rules open up

    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.

  4. 04

    There's a license ladder, and the bottom rung is free

    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.

  5. 05

    Get high — height beats power

    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.

  6. 06

    Have a PACE plan

    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.

  7. 07

    Mesh runs when the grid doesn't

    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.

  8. 08

    Practice the boring parts

    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 tables Spike walked through, rebuilt so you can come back to them. Scroll sideways on a phone.

The radio-service ladder

From free walkie-talkies up to licensed ham — what each tier gives you.

ServiceBandChannelsMax legal powerLicense
FRSUHF222 WNone
MURSVHF52 WNone
CBHF404 WNone
GMRSUHF3050 W~$35, no test, 10 yrs
HamHF · VHF · UHFMany1500 WTest required, 10 yrs

The P.A.C.E. plan

Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency — a layered plan for staying reachable.

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.

The civilian off-grid ecosystem

Five families of radio, and what each is good for when the grid is down.

SystemRangePowerCarries
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 — runs on batteries and solar when the lights go out.

Go deeper

Resources & where to plug in

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