to and searching on the alternate frequency as stated above it may be that a search in progress on frequency 1 is not finished when the frequency 2 search request comes in in prior architectures one solution was to simply discard the intermediate results start the frequency 2 search and thus lower the effective utilization of the searcher as well as degrade overall system performance whenever the aborted search results in using less than optimal signal paths for demodulation in embodiments of the present invention examples of which are detailed below the frequency 1 search can be interrupted then restored once the frequency 2 search is completed another potential problem could arise if the time allotted for frequency 2 search was not sufficient to tune to that frequency and complete the search task on that frequency the frequency 1 request would then come and the frequency 2 results would be discarded or the frequency 1 search would have to be postponed in the embodiments described below the frequency 2 search can be interrupted and restored during the next frequency 2 allotment furthermore if the time allotment for a frequency is known in advance the search tasks for that frequency can be partitioned to fit within it 0027.