摘要 |
A method and apparatus is provided for a operating a radio system (100) on shared communication channels. The system (100) has a sequence of communication channels (205), including a reservation channel, and a channel hopping protocol for operating on the sequence (205). A hop period is defined for the channel hopping protocol. The reservation channel is monitored for at least the channel hop period to find an open communication slot indicated by the absence of a reservation signal (320, 325, 330). Communications is then established within the open slot, and channel hopping occurs through the sequence of communication channels in the open slot (345, 350). The slot is preserved by transmitting a reservation signal on the reservation channel, when operating on the reservation channel (355, 360).
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