Abstract: A wideband CDMA receiver system to accept messages from asynchronously transmitting base stations is provided. The base station transmission to each receiver includes a perch channel and at least one traffic channel. Although all the channels typically include pilot symbols for the purpose of demodulating the information symbols of the channel, the pilot channel includes a higher proportion of pilot symbols to information symbols. Therefore, a perch channel based timing and estimation system is inherently more accurate. In addition, the perch channel is generally transmitted at higher power levels than a traffic channel, and the resulting, higher, signal to noise ratio signal also improves the accuracy of the timing and channel estimation. Based on the timing derived from the perch channel of a first base station, the receiver can set the timing of the traffic channel transmissions from a second base station, to more closely match the timing of traffic channel transmissions from the first base station.