An apparatus and method for operating a phase locked loop frequency synthesizer responsive to radio frequency channel spacing. The phase locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer (300) tunes a radio frequency transceiver (100) to a radio frequency channel. A processor (110) in the transceiver (100) determines the channel spacing of the radio frequency channels in a portion of a radio frequency band including the radio frequency channel, and controls the PLL frequency synthesizer (300) responsive to the determined channel spacing. The present invention advantageously provides the PLL frequency synthesizer (300) with faster lock time and lower noise.