A base-site (304) combines baseband frequency hopping and fast-synthesizer hopping to produce an economical frequency hopping communication system (300). The base-site (304) combines the fast-synthesizer frequency hopping capability of transmitters (307-309) with baseband frequency hopping to produce a frequency hopping communication system (300) which serves the same number of subscribers served by transmitters (208-213) in a purely baseband hopping communication system (200), but with fewer transmitters (307-309). The implementation of frequency-selective cavities (312-317) having very low loss eliminates the need for wideband hybrid combiners (112-114), which in turn eliminates transmitted-signal power loss experienced in a purely fast-synthesizer frequency hopping communication system (100).