The process and apparatus of the present invention limits the output power of a radiotelephone, operating in a cellular system in the preferred embodiment. This ensures the transmitted sidebands and synthesizer phase noise remains within a certain specification. This is accomplished by power detection and a correction accumulator that together generate a gain control signal by limiting the gain adjustment to a maximum value, even when the cell site communicating with the radiotelephone is sending power turn-up commands to the radiotelephone. This process includes dynamically correcting the output level of the transmitter due to gain variations in the transmitter stages or gain control elements.