Abstract: A wireless user terminal (10), such as a cellular telephone, is of a type that receives a forward digital control channel that is comprised of a plurality of continuously transmitted frames, comprised of time slots, which are logically organized into Superframes contained within Hyperframes. A method includes the steps of (a) receiving and storing a first SPACH slot from a first Hyperframe; (b) receiving and storing at least a F-BCCH slot from a second, next Hyperframe; (c) receiving a second SPACH slot from the second, next Hyperframe; (d) decoding the stored first SPACH slot and the second SPACH slot and calculating a CRC of each decoded SPACH slot using DVCC information contained within the received F-BCCH slot; and (e) comparing a state of a BCN flag in the first SPACH slot to the state of the BCN flag in the second SPACH slot and, if they are equal, declaring that the received and stored F-BCCH slot is valid.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for a user terminal (10) to obtain access to a DCCH transmitted on a TDM radio channel of a wireless communications system that also includes at least one TDM radio channel that transmits a DTC. The DCCH and DTC are each comprised of slots partitioned into fields. A first step (a) tunes a receiver (16) to a radio channel, receives a first slot, and decodes a predetermined first field from the first slot. The predetermined first field is a 12-bit CSFP field if the radio channel conveys a DCCH, or a 12-bit CDVCC if the radio channel conveys a DTC. A second step of the method calculates a CRC over the first field to determine if the first field is the CSFP field. If yes, the user terminal assumes that the radio channel conveys the DCCH and then uses information from the DCCH to access the wireless system.