Abstract: A waveform characterizer apparatus is disclosed for extracting cepstrum pitch and spectral properties of a waveform signal such as the baseband audio output of a receiver. The apparatus employs Fourier processing, cepstral processing, magnitude detection, logarithms processing, frequency selective filtering and time/frequency windowing to extract cepstrum pitch and spectral rolloff characteristics which can then be used to determine the signal type. One application of the invention is in a digital voice/squelch apparatus.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for synchronizing the operation of frequency hopping, spread spectrum communication devices in a network. One device (the "NTU") is deemed to be keeping the network time, to which the other devices must synchronize in order to communicate over the network. In a broadcast mode of the method an unsynchronized unit (a "RTU") operates in an idle state to receive on a discrete set of receive frequencies. The total communication time period is divided into intervals, and a unique synchronization code is generated for each time interval which defines the idle state frequencies and time information transmit frequencies to be employed in accordance with the method. The time kept by the RTU is assumed to within a predetermined number of time interval of the present network time interval.