A receiver synchronization technique is described in this disclosure that significantly reduces the convergence time for synchronization further enabling specially modulated radio frequency carrier waves using the following steps: the characteristics of the baseband signal are used to detect the start of a received burst. Once the presence of a symbol is detected, the data acquisition subsystem is enabled to begin collecting samples. These samples are then transferred to the DSP. The DSP then searches for a preamble to precisely determine the timing delay to the start of the payload data.