Abstract: A method for allowing a mobile station to find a code transmitted by a base station which has a propagation delay to the mobile station which is much larger or smaller than a propagation delay between the mobile station and a base station from which it derived a time reference is provided. In the context of IS-95, a PN offset is sent to the mobile station to identify which target base station pilot signals to search for. By sending a virtual PN offset which differs from the real PN offset, the mobile station can find the target base station signals where normally they would fall outside the mobile station's search window.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method and system for performing a handoff in a wireless communication system including receiving a communications signal from a mobile unit. The communications signal includes a phase offset from a pilot signal from one of the neighboring base station transceivers. A handoff process to one of the neighboring base station transceivers is then initiated and an ambiguity is detected by determining whether the phase offset from the pilot signal is in two neighbor search windows for two neighboring base station transceivers. If the ambiguity is detected, the search window for an active set of neighboring base station transceivers is widened so that the mobile unit can identify the pilot signal with the correct base station transceiver. If the ambiguity is detected, the hand off process is paused until the mobile unit can analyze all of the pilot signals from the neighboring base stations.