Disclosed herein is a method for automatic gain control based on signal spectrum sensing. Spectral sensing techniques may be employed to detect the presence or absence of interference and also determine a frequency location of the interference and power level estimates of a desired signal. The method includes running an algorithm to measure the energy periodically to track the changes as blockers that were not prominent while experiencing deep fade and those that will affect performance when it is out of the deep fade. The method enables predicting a level of degradation for various front-end settings and enables selection of an optimum setting. In an embodiment, the spectral sensing may be performed either in analog domain using narrowband tunable filters. In an embodiment, the spectral sensing may be performed digitally using Fast fourier transform (FFT), Goertzel algorithm, or power detection techniques.