Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A user equipment (UE) may use easily detectable transmission parameters to infer difficult-to-detect parameters for communications with a base station. For example, the base station may provide the UE with multiple sets of transmission parameters, and the UE 115 may choose from among these sets of transmission parameters for the communications. In some cases, the UE may be configured with a reference set of transmission parameters, receive one or more transmission parameters that are different relative to the reference set of transmission parameters, and then determine to use the different transmission parameters for the communications. Additionally or alternatively, the multiple sets of transmission parameters may be specified for a certain uplink message (e.g., random access channel messages), where the UE selects the transmission parameter set based on one or more characteristics of the uplink message.