A method for adaptive conventional scanning in a two-way radio transceiver (300) includes initiating an unweighted scan behavior (301) from a scanning list and then determining if qualified activity is present on a scanned channel (303) for a predetermined number of scan cycles. Once qualified activity is detected, the scanned channel is then marked (307) as having high activity. The transceiver then switches (309) to a weighted scan behavior such that the marked channel will be checked at a higher periodic rate than an unmarked channel. Once qualified activity is detected on the marked channel for a predetermined number of cycles (311) the channel is unmarked (315) and the weighted nature of the scan is removed such that normal scanning activity is resumed (317). The marking process increases the overall scanning rate enhancing the overall performance of the scan for all channels.