This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus for a signaling mechanism associated with activating a secondary cell (SCell) for uplink control information (UCI), including under circumstances in which the SCell is deactivated and belongs to a timing advance group (TAG) lacking a valid timing advance (TA) value. In one aspect, a user equipment (UE) and one or more components of a network entity may employ a signaling mechanism for establishing an SCell as a PUCCH-SCell in scenarios in which the PUCCH-SCell belongs to a secondary TAG (sTAG) lacking a valid TA value. The signaling mechanism may include signaling to directly provide the network entity with beam measurement information associated with one or more SCells of the sTAG or may include singling that the network entity may use to derive the beam measurement information associated with the one or more SCells of the sTAG.