A method of detecting, and a receiver for, a spread spectrum signal, in which a chip sequence is sampled (110) and filtered in a matched filter (120), the output of the filter is averaged (130) over respective samples of successive chip sequences, sub-samples are determined (180) by interpolating between the averaged samples, and the position of the chip sequence in the spread spectrum signal is determined (170) by determining the position of closest match between the sub-samples and samples taken at the same interval from a reference correlation function (160) of the chip sequence. The time of arrival of the spread spectrum signal may be determined by comparison of the position of the chip sequence, or an average of more than one such position, with a time reference. The position of closest match may be determined by correlation.