To provide a method and a CDMA receiver to acquire a pilot signal.

A retrieval receiver 114 is provided with a sample buffer 202 that uses a real time clock to store a loaded signal sample. A real time linear sequence generator (RT LSG) 206 stores an initial state and the time is counted by using a real time clock. The content of the RT SLG is loaded in a non-real time linear sequence generator (NRT LSG) 208 when sample processing is started. The sample is correlated by using the non-real time clock to make the signal processing independent of the chip speed. An analog front end reduces the power for the non-real time processing or is tuned to other frequency.