Abstract: A method and apparatus detects (516) a baud rate in a digital signal (442). An N-state counter (404) counts at a rate N times the baud rate and the digital signal is sampled (504) to detect transitions of the digital signal. N tallies (202) record how many transitions occur coincident with each of the states of the counter, and a total number of transitions detected is computed (508). M groups (204-210) of the tallies are formed (510) corresponding to contiguous sequential states of the counter, and for each group a group number is calculated (512) indicating how many transitions are recorded in the tallies of the group. Each group is defined (514) transitional if the group number exceeds a percentage (413) of the total number of transitions, and the baud rate is determined present or absent based upon the groups that are defined as transitional.

Abstract: A channel scanning communication receiver (204) operates in a system that transmits information in cycles (104) including subsequences (106). The receiver determines whether to operate in a scanning or locked mode by making (302) signal quality pass/fail decisions for subsequences transmitted in a predetermined group of cycles. A decision is made for a transmission of a subsequence, and subsequence active/inactive decisions are made (304) for the subsequences transmitted in the predetermined group of cycles, based upon the signal quality pass/fail decisions made for the subsequences. The receiver determines (306) whether the system is time-shared or continuous, based upon how many active decisions and inactive decisions are made, and selects (310, 312) the scanning or locked mode in accordance with predetermined rules for time-shared or continuous systems, according to whether the system is time-shared or continuous.