The present invention provides a method and apparatus for reducing scanning times by eliminating from consideration channels where the measured power is substantially comprised of adjacent channel power. The method and apparatus include measuring the received channel power (302) from neighboring cells, and attempting to acquire or otherwise identifying signals from the channels of the neighboring cells (306) in descending order of a sorted list of received channel power. When a signal from the channel of a neighboring cell is successfully acquired or otherwise identified, an amount of adjacent channel power is determined (310), based upon an expected power profile of the acquired or otherwise identified signal. The determined adjacent channel power is then compared against the power measured for the corresponding channel (312). Where the measured power is substantially comprised of adjacent channel power, the channel is removed from the list of channels to acquire (316).