Mobile user equipment (MUE) can be enabled to search for and camp on a preferred node, such as a home base node (HBN), in a battery-efficient manner even when currently camped on another node, such as a macro base node (MBN). When the MBN provides good channel quality, slow rate background intra- and inter-frequency searches can discover the preferred HBN that would otherwise not be discovered or would consume excessive power with continual searching. When channel quality is fair, slow rate background inter-frequency searches can result in timely switching to the preferred HBN. Location hints that indicate proximity of the preferred HBN can be used to trigger slow rate background searches. Neighboring cell searching of neighbor cell listing (NCL) when in channel quality is fair or poor are maintained to prepare for call reselections to available node.