Some embodiments provide a normal rate preamble detector to detect a signal transmitted in accordance with a first set of modulation and coding schemes and a low rate preamble detector to detect a signal transmitted in accordance with a second set of modulation and coding schemes. Embodiments may comprise channel traffic logic to determine a traffic indicator indicative of traffic on a communications channel. In many embodiments, channel traffic logic may comprise logic to determine a duty cycle of communications to determine the traffic indicator for the channel. In several embodiments, channel traffic logic may comprise logic to determine channel occupancy to determine the traffic indicator. Based upon the traffic indicator, channel traffic logic may determine whether to disable the low rate preamble detector. Further embodiments comprise logic to design a station, determining whether to include a low rate preamble detector based upon parameters related to channel traffic.