A method and apparatus for fast cell search based on a chirp reference signal transmission is disclosed herein. A primary synchronization channel (P-SCH) and two secondary synchronization channels (S-SCH1 and S-SCH2) will be utilized. S- SCH1 will comprise a reference sequence having a first index value and S-SCH2 will comprise a reference sequence having a second index value. S-SCH1 and S- SCH2 will be scrambled with a first and a second scrambling code, respectively. The second scrambling code will be based on the first index value.