Systems and methods for providing half duplex user equipment in a packet based radio frequency signaling communication system. User equipment with half duplex receiver and half duplex transmitter on IC providing a transceiver capability performs a cycle of receiving downlink messages for a predetermined number of sub frames, shifting to a transmit mode, transmitting uplink messages for the predetermined number of sub frames, shifting to a receive mode, and repeating the cycle of half duplex sub frames. A discontinuous reception function performs a DRX protocol wherein power is reduced to the transceiver for a period of time. A determination is made at the end of the discontinuous reception period to see if the half duplex cycle is at an uplink sub frame; if so, the end of the discontinuous reception is shifted by the user equipment to a downlink sub frame by adding a delay.