A method and apparatus for controlling a primary cell search operation including generating a profile of correlation peaks, determining if magnitudes of the correlation peaks vary, synchronizing a signal acquisition process to one of the identified correlation peak having a greatest magnitude if the magnitudes of the correlation peaks remain relatively constant and synchronizing the signal acquisition process to a peak whose magnitude is increasing if the magnitudes of the correlation peaks are changing. The method and apparatus further include identifying an index and a magnitude of a largest correlation peak of the correlation peaks, determining if other correlation peaks exist in the profile, synchronizing the signal acquisition process to the largest correlation peak originally identified if other correlation peaks do not exist, storing indices and magnitudes for all other correlation peaks located and comparing changes in correlation peak magnitudes for all previously identified peaks.