A method for the acquisition of burst synchronization signals in a spread spectrum communication system is provided. The method receives a burst synchronization signal, applies a dwelling procedure according to a scheduling scheme to the burst synchronization signal, wherein the dwelling procedure calculates a matched filter output, sums the outputs over one slot time, calculates the energy in the sum, searches the maximum energy value and passes it to a Random Access Memory. At the end of the scheduling scheme, searching is performed for the overall maximum energy value among the energy values stored in the Random Access Memory.