Patent ID: 8437334

Claim:
A method for maintaining a radio link at a mobile radio that is configured to receive bursts transmitted from infrastructure equipment in time slots over an outbound traffic channel, the method comprising: starting a synchronization acquisition timer at the mobile radio upon receiving a first burst; monitoring, at the mobile radio, frame synchronization with the outbound traffic channel; instructing a switch to a control channel to attempt to become synchronized with frame timing when the mobile radio determines, based on a logical Inter-slot Signaling Channel, that a number of incorrect frame synchronization entries presently stored in a frame synchronization register is greater than or equal to a first threshold and determines that ultraframe synchronization has not been re-acquired before the synchronization acquisition timer expires, switching, at the mobile radio, to a control channel, and starting a fade timer at the mobile radio, when a fade condition is detected, to begin timing the duration of the fade condition; continuously determining whether the fade timer has expired at the mobile radio; stopping and resetting the fade timer, at the mobile radio when the mobile radio successfully decodes a Slow Access Control Channel burst or a Fast Access Control Channel burst; and switching to the control channel at the mobile radio when the mobile radio determines that the fade timer has expired.