Abstract. In burst mode communications, fast and efficient estimation of demodulator reference parameters is a key issue as receivers must he able to correctly synchronize on short bursts of data. To do so. it is possible to use a preamble in each data burst as long as the algorithms used require very short preambles and therefore do not degrade communication efficiency excessively. If a preamble is used, in fact, estimation performance is better than when a fully modulated carrier is used. In this paper the authors propose a novel feedfonvard technique for reference parameter recovery in PSK demodulation, the main characteristics of which are robustness to frequency offsets. short acquisition time and ease of implementation, even with lowcost digital hardware. The technique is based on a very short special camer preamble modulated by a known pattern, which allows the reference parameters to be estimated simultaneously and directly.