Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A node (e.g., a base station or network entity) may identify a signal that provides an indication of a location of a contention free random access channel (CFRA) resource within a time region and an indication of a timing pattern for the CFRA resource, the timing pattern associated with a pattern of subsequent instances of the time region in which the CFRA resource is repeated, wherein the CFRA resource is not a fully overlapping resource with respect to a contention based random access (CBRA) resource. The node may convey the signal to one or more user equipment (UE) to indicate the location and the timing pattern.