Abstract: The invention discloses a method of measuring the rough frequency deviation in digital communication transmissions with echo propagation, particularly in the short-wave domain. A repeatedly transmitted PN sequence serves as the preamble of a data block. This PN sequence is compressed at the receiving end in matched filters provided in each one of a plurality of simultaneous, frequency offset Doppler channels. The Doppler channel having the greatest amplitude in the quadrature signal is selected for a determination of the rough frequency deviation. To detect a pattern in the preamble, the quadrature signals are examined for similarities by an amplitude comparison or in a cross-correlation process.