Methods and apparatus for improved beacon signaling in a wireless communication system are described. Information is encoded in the tone position of the beacon tone. The information encoded may include sector type, sector index and slope index, as well as some time index. The information is coded in the tone position so that any few of several beacons can be decoded in order to decode the information. The methods and apparatus described in the invention improve the robustness against frequency selective fading and do not require wireless terminals to establish synchronization for reliable base station detection.