A wireless method and apparatus for late entry in frequency hopping systems that, during call setup, computes a random permutation sequence through a hop set of frequencies, chooses preamble frequencies to omit data thereon in lieu of preamble data, and swaps frequencies in the random permutation sequence such that synchronization frequencies lie next to the preamble frequencies with an expected delay such that late entrants can join. The wireless method and apparatus meets the FCC requirement of maintaining a pseudorandom hopping pattern and equal distribution of all frequencies in a hop set while guaranteeing late entry and having no effect on battery performance of radios.