In general, in one aspect, the disclosure describes a method defining order and means in which physical parameters of a received OFDM signal may be detected. A fractional frequency offset is determined for the OFDM signal and is used to determine a coarse location for received signal preamble. A symbol boundary is determined based on the coarse location and the course location is used to determine preamble location. A preamble sequence and integer frequency offset is determined based on the preamble location.