At a base station receiver in a CDMA wireless communications system, in order to reduce reliance on the parameter values transmitted on a packet data control channel (PDCCH) to properly detect the high speed packet data transmitted on a packet data channel (PDCH) with which the PDCCH is code-division-multiplexed, data detection is performed using different possible values for at least one of the parameters and determining if a data packet derived from the PDCH detected under the different values produces a detected data packet that passes a CRC check. If a data packet derived from the received PDCH using a possible parameter value passes the CRC check, then the data packet is delivered to the output and an ACK is transmitted back to the transmitting mobile terminal.