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The mean acquisition time performance for a direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DS/SS) code acquisition technique utilizing a finite impulse response (FIR) least-mean-square (LMS)-adaptive filter is investigated in fading conditions. The optimum tap-weight vector for the adaptive filter is derived and computer simulation results are presented to assess the acquisition performance for the system. It is shown that fading causes a slight degradation to the mean acquisition time (less than 3-dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) degradation) which is far less than that incurred by other systems utilizing matched filters (about 10 dB). In frequency selective fading channels, the adaptive nature of the proposed scheme is exploited to acquire the strongest received path and as the paths fade the new strongest available path is acquired.