This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus, including computer storage media, for sidelink communications using partial symbols to reduce overhead of automatic gain control (AGC) and gaps. A transmitting user equipment (UE) maps a sidelink signal to a subset of resource elements in a frequency domain allocation defined via a comb for a first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol. The transmitting UE performs an inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) on the resource elements to generate a first time domain signal that includes a number of repetitions of a first waveform based on a structure of the comb. The transmitting UE transmits at least one repetition of the first waveform of the first time domain signal during at least a portion of the first OFDM symbol. A receiving UE performs AGC and a discrete Fourier transform on portions of the time domain signal.