A method for operating a receiver in a wireless communication system to synchronize the receiver to a received signal. The received signal is preamble correlated to identify a preamble portion of the signal. Portions of the received signal near the identified preamble portion are processed to determine signal-distorting channel characteristics, such as multipath channel delay spread, of the channel over which the received signal propagated. A digital filter is configured based on the determined channel characteristics to compensate for the signal-distorting channel characteristics, and the received signal is filtered with the configured digital filter. The filtered received signal is second preamble correlated with a second preamble that is different than the first preamble to produce a second preamble correlation. The second preamble correlation is processed to identify delay in the filtered received signal. Portions of the filtered received signal are identified and processed based on the identified delay.