Patent ID: 7710940

Claim:
A method for synchronizing mobile equipment in a CDMA system comprising a plurality of base stations for communicating with the mobile equipment, the base stations being mutually synchronized, each base station having a synchronization channel transmit timing offset within a synchronization time slot, the method comprising the steps of: prior to synchronizing the mobile equipment with a base station performing the following steps; scanning a base radio signal during at least one frame to detect a signal portion with predetermined characteristics, one of the characteristics being received signal strength, the characteristics excluding a synchronization code; deriving timing information associated with the CDMA system from the signal portion; and starting synchronization of the mobile equipment with the base station using the timing information to perform a search to match the synchronization code in the synchronization time slot, wherein: the signal portion is the received power of the base station signal as received by the mobile equipment; or the signal portion is a guard period of the base station signal.