An apparatus and method allow receivers to quickly acquire a pseudorandom
noise signal. A receiver advantageously detects frequency shifts using a
compact parallel process hardware implementation of a Discrete Fourier
Transform (DFT). The simultaneous detection of multiple frequencies
allows the receiver to search the frequency range of the transmitted
signal in larger increments of frequency, thereby increasing the speed of
acquisition. One receiver does not use coherent integration before
computation of the transform and advantageously maintains a flat
frequency response. The flat frequency response of the DFT circuit
enables searching of multiple frequency offsets without CPU intensive
processing to compensate for frequency response variations. A receiver
can include a Doppler correction circuit, which permits correlation data
with frequency shift in the code to be non-coherently integrated among
relatively fewer addresses or tap positions in memory.