The mobile station is in the sleep mode until just prior to a designated slot. Upon wakeup, the mobile station ensures a link is maintained with the network by measuring the strength of several pilots. If a neighbor pilot is stronger than the current pilot, a handoff is performed. After handoff, the Control Channel Capsule (CCC) may be demodulated by the mobile station to obtain new overhead information, such as neighbor pilots. If no handoff is performed, the reacquisition slew for the current pilot is measured and fed back to the sleep controller to determine the next wake-up time. The mobile station then returns to sleep mode.