A system and method for transmitting and receiving control information over a control channel of a wireless communication system where the conveyed information is coded and then transformed by a set of transform function selected from a plurality of sets of transform functions. The control information is transmitted as replicated sub-frames containing replicated code words and such a string of transformed replicated code words is referred to as a control message. At a receive end inverse transform functions from different sets of functions are applied to a sub-frame of a control message so that if the sub-frame is successfully decoded the inverse transform function applied to such frame allows the timing of the control message to be determined.