Patent ID: 8160008

Claim:
A method of operating a wireless user station, comprising: receiving at the station an assigned starting point index and an assigned reference signal bandwidth for a reference signal; receiving at the station a hopping pattern parameter; receiving at the station a parameter related to total bandwidth assigned to a physical uplink shared channel; and transmitting multiple times from the station, beginning at an initial resource block Ni that is associated with the assigned starting point index and in accordance with the assigned reference signal bandwidth, the reference signal across the physical uplink shared channel, the physical uplink shared channel being configured for transmission of data related to the user station; wherein transmitting multiple times comprises: determining (i) at least one index point based on the hopping pattern parameter, (ii) a total number of resource blocks corresponding to the total bandwidth assigned to the physical uplink shared channel, and (iii) a number of resource blocks corresponding to the assigned reference signal bandwidth; determining at least one subsequent resource block that is associated with the at least one index point; assigning a first plurality of resource blocks starting at the initial resource block Ni, a number of resource blocks within the first plurality of resource blocks corresponding to the assigned reference signal bandwidth; assigning at least a second plurality of resource blocks starting at the at least one subsequent resource block, the number of resource blocks within at least the second plurality of resource blocks corresponding to the assigned reference signal bandwidth; and effecting transmission of the first plurality of resource blocks and the second plurality of resource blocks by the user station.