A receiving system dynamically searches the communications band for transmissions of messages having the same nominal communications parameters, including the use of the same spreading code, but having potentially different specific frequencies and code-phases. The receiver, which is independent of the transmitters, samples the communications band at each code-phase of the spreading code over a span of downconverted transmission frequencies. When a message element is detected at a particular code-phase and frequency, it is forwarded to a demodulator that demodulates the message and sends it to its intended destination. In a preferred embodiment, a progressive Fourier Transform is used to incrementally determine the power level at each successive code-phase at a given frequency, thereby substantially reducing the time required to search for transmissions at each discrete code-phase. To accommodate variances in frequency and/or phase of a received signal from the same transmitter, the received signal is partitioned into subsets, and a composite measure is used to detect subsets that ‘slip’ into an adjacent frequency or phase sampling bin.