A trunked base station (BS) in a trunked radio system tunes its receiver to the hailing channel and monitors for a hailing signal. A subscriber unit (SU) scans a first set of control channels for a control signal transmitted by the trunked BS. In response to failing to locate a control signal on any one of the first set of control channels, the SU tunes its transmitter to a hailing channel and transmits a hailing signal. In response to receiving a hailing signal from a SU, the BS tunes to a transmit portion of a trunked control channel and transmits a control signal. And the BS subsequently tunes to a receive portion of the trunked control channel and monitors for a registration response. Subsequently, the SU scans a second set of control channels for a control signal transmitted by a BS in the system.