In embodiments, user equipment (UE) is configured to acquire automatic gain control (AGC) of an analog RF front end by maintaining a plurality of M×N AGC loops in which the output of the power detector drives input of a gain state machine after a predetermined delay. Each of the loops corresponds to a different periodic set of tasks of (1/M) subframe in length. In each of the loops, the gain is determined by a power measurement taken ((M×N)+1) tasks ago. A synchronization signal, such as a Primary Synchronization Signal, occurs early in Time Division Duplex (TDD) subframes that follow selected downlink subframes. The periodicity of the selected subframes is N. This allows the UE to converge on proper AGC gain for downlink subframes through a relatively short search, such as a binary search. The UE can then decode the synchronization signal and acquire network timing.