Mobile stations, base stations, radio network controllers and communication systems perform according to the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) protocol for transmitting data packets from a transmitting entity to a receiving entity via a data channel. A HARQ method sending synchronous retransmissions involves a feedback message received from the receiving entity at the transmitting entity and, in case the feedback message indicates that the data packet has not been received successfully, a retransmission data packet is transmitted to the receiving entity after a predetermined time span upon having received the feedback message. The receiving entity soft combines the retransmission data packet with the previously received data packet.