Patent ID: 8259640

Claim:
A terminal to receive a signal transmitted by a satellite, the terminal comprising: a receiver configured to receive the signal transmitted by the satellite; and a header processor, communicatively coupled with the receiver, and configured to: receive a digitized stream comprising a physical layer signal representative of the received signal, the digitized stream including a plurality of physical layer headers spaced substantially equidistant in time and each associated with a respective physical layer payload; analyze the digitized stream to detect a first header identifier identifying a first physical layer header portion of the digitized stream; demodulate and decode the first physical layer header portion to identify a first sub-channel identifier for an associated first physical layer payload; determine a search location in the digitized stream for a second header identifier detection analysis; and determine not to perform a header identifier detection analysis in the digitized stream at one or more known header identifier locations between the first physical layer header portion and the search location, responsive to the first sub-channel identifier.