Abstract: A method is disclosed for operating a mobile station (10). The method includes a first step of receiving a forward channel from a base station (30), the forward channel being transmitted to contain repeating frames each comprising N time slots, individual ones of the time slots including a synchronization word. A second step of the method correlates an i.sup.th one of the N time slots using a first correlation sequence (SYNC 1) and a second correlation sequence (SYNC 4) to obtain a first correlation result and a second correlation result, respectively. A third step of the method declares the forward channel to be one of a half-rate channel or a full-rate channel based on the first and second correlation results. In an exemplary embodiment N is equal to six, and i is equal to four. In the exemplary embodiment the first N/2 of the time slots are transmitted to have a same sequence of N/2 synchronization words whether the channel is a half-rate channel or a full-rate channel.

Abstract: A wireless communications system (1) has at least one base station, such as a personal base station (5), and a plurality of mobile stations (10) capable of wireless slotted communications with the at least one personal base station. A method includes a step of periodically deactivating, for a predetermined period of time, a base station transmitter (32) from transmitting a RF signal to at least one MS. A next step, executed during the predetermined period of time, operates a base station receiver (34) to perform a received signal strength (RSS) measurement. In a first embodiment of this invention the step of deactivating includes a preliminary step of reserving a reverse slot for use by the base station, thereby insuring that a mobile station will not transmit during the reserved slot. In this case the RSS measurement occurs during the reserved slot.