Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. Generally, a base station may indicate in system information, or a user equipment (UE) may determine based on system information, which reference signal resources may be used for channel estimation for a given broadcast control channel. In some examples, a base station may configure and transmit reference signals having the same numerology as a broadcast control channel according to a first reference signal pattern during the same subframe in which the broadcast control channel is configured. The first reference signal pattern may be more dense than a second reference signal pattern used for reference signals having a different numerology than the broadcast control channel. The more dense first reference signal pattern may provide sufficient reference signals for successful single-symbol channel estimation, resulting in a successful decoding of the broadcast control channel.