A mobile station requests origination of a call and reports signal strength measurements of pilot signals from multiple sectors, where some of the sectors support a preferred air interface configuration (such as RC 11) and some do not. The signal strength measurements may be evaluated to determine which sectors to use for the call and whether to use RC 11 or a default air interface configuration (such as RC 3 or RC 4) for the call. Sectors that support the preferred air interface configuration may be evaluated using a first threshold, and sectors that do not support the preferred air interface configuration may be evaluated using a second threshold. The first threshold can be greater than the second threshold, in order to favor the use of sectors that support the preferred air interface configuration over sectors that do not.