A method of compensating for doppler phase errors includes receiving a signal at a receiver wherein the signal is spread using a pseudo-noise code, dividing the signal into a plurality of smaller coherent units and then compensating for induced doppler phase errors by analyzing the plurality of smaller coherent units. Analysis may include producing a plurality of coherent sums by summing across the smaller coherent units and then summing non-coherently the plurality of coherent sums. Analysis may also include demodulating a symbol from the smaller coherent units. A modulation technique may be selected from a plurality of modulation techniques and then be used to encode and transmit a symbol stream.