Abstract: A method and apparatus are disclosed for achieving symbol (frame) synchronization of digital data in an OFDM channel such as an OFDM/FM radio link. The method and apparatus are suitable for use in a pure ALOHA environment because synchronization is achieved on a frame-by-frame basis. The required bandwidth overhead is less than 10%. The bit-error-rate performance achievable with this technique is within 1.5 dB of the performance assuming ideal synchronization. The method and apparatus provide a three-stage synchronization process. First the onset of an ODFM frame is detected. Second, coarse synchronization is achieved by sampling the received signal, and measuring the correlation between the received signal and a reference signal. Coarse synchronization provides synchronization to within .+-.1/2 sample period. The correlation is preferably carried out in the frequency domain after carrying out a Fast Fourier Transform on the sampled signal data.