A detection process of a communication channel based on a ternary alphabet is provided wherein the channel transmitting a signal transports the same transmitted symbol for N sequential slots within one Time Transmission Interval (TTI). The detection process comprises a mechanism that eliminates unwanted signal contributions and isolates noise contributions. The detection process estimates a noise variance and sums consecutive received signals of a same Transmission Time Interval (TTI) in order to isolate a transmitted signal portion. The detection further obtains a chi squared distribution, which is used to determine a threshold that is proportional to the estimated noise variance. The threshold is then used to detect the communication channel.