Patent ID: 7706795

Claim:
A method for processing a communication signal in a cellular communication system that supports handoff, comprising: tuning a receiver portion to an on-channel frequency to receive a signal; converting the received signal into a base band signal comprising an on-channel signal transmitted at the on-channel frequency from a first transmitter source and at least one out-of channel signal transmitted at a second frequency from a second transmitter source, the second transmitter source different from the first transmitter source and the second frequency different from the on-channel frequency; filtering the base band signal to produce on-channel received samples by removing the at least one out-of-channel signal from the base band signal; processing the base band signal to produce out-of-channel received samples; processing the on-channel received samples to decode data transmitted over the on-channel signal; and processing the out-of-channel received samples to determine a quality measure associated with the at least one out-of-channel signal.